












Class 

Book 



'TisxrA 'l 


Copyright N° 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 







Alexander Me Bain 

B. A . 


By ADELINE TESKET 

The Village Artist 

ILLUSTRATED 
12mo, Cloth - - $1.00 


“ The artist conceives 
likenesses of people as they 
might become if they gave 
their best qualities a chance. 
Mrs. Simon Slade tells her 
experiences in a quaint, 
simple manner, that is itself 
a rare delight. . . . Alto- 
gether a delightful product- 
ion. ” — Washington Star. :: 


FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 

Publishers 


Alexander McBain 

B. A. 

A PRINCE IN PENURY 


BY 

ADELINE M. TESKEY 

AUTHOR OF “THE VILLAGE ARTIST” 



New York Chicago Toronto 

Fleming H. Revell Company 

London and Edinburgh 


\ 


Copyright, 1906, by 

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

0C1 29 1906 




New York : 158 Fifth Avenue 

Chicago : 80 Wabash Avenue 

Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W. 
London : 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh : 100 Princes Street 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. What is Man ? 9 

II. The Widow’s Mite 24 

III. “The Wee Croodlin’ Doo ’’ 33 

IV. Sandy 46 

V. Maggie 53 

VI. The Woman and the Hoe 67 

VII. The Ring Crowned with Two Hearts ... 81 

VIII. A Success at Checkers 97 

IX. A Crack in the Marble 103 

X. The Widow’s Pride 113 

XI. Bill Gilooly’s Inspiration 127 

XII. The Women Interfere 134 

XIII. Bill Turns Preacher 152 

XIV. Devious Ways 159 

XV. The Village Helper Underiakes 168 

XVI. What Some of the Villagers Thought . . . 176 

XVII. The Hush in the Village 185 

XVIII. Bill Gilooly Leaves Home 193 

XIX. More of Alexander 204 

XX. Life at the Wayside Tavern 217 

XXI. In the Wilderness 230 

XXII. A Voice in the Wilderness 245 

XXIII. Bill Gilooly Goes West 253 

XXIV. The Derelict 266 

XXV. In the Old Village 276 

XXVI. The Best Robe 286 








Alexander McBain, B.A. 

I 

WHAT IS MAN? 

H E was young and slender, almost gentle- 
manly-looking, as he reeled through our 
village streets, bumping against our tall, 
queenly maples, and occasionally falling prone among 
the grasses and weeds that skirted the narrow plank 
sidewalk. He had become a familiar sight to most of 
us, and we had stopped passing remarks, and simply 
looked at the swaying young figure with a lowering of 
the brows, or perhaps a feeling of depression about the 
heart, but to strangers the painful story of his life 
had to be told over and over again. 

To the question often carelessly asked, “ Who is 
that young fellow making a snake fence across the 
sidewalk?” we would reply in an abashed voice, al- 
though, as any of the villagers would have told you, 
we were not “ temperance,” and would have consid- 
ered anyone who advanced “ teetotle ” ideas fanatical 
in the extreme. 


10 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


“ That is our B. A.” 

u Your B. A.? ” with a rising inflection would im- 
mediately follow. 

Then we would continue in a lower tone to tell 
that the young fellow was the only son of a widowed 
mother, who by strenuous effort had kept him in 
college until he had won the degree of Bachelor of 
Arts, but by the time he was through he was such 
a slave to strong drink that his education was prac- 
tically useless. 

The questioner would glance a second time at the 
reeling figure, more interestedly this time, and look 
pained, or simply curious, according to his own char- 
acter and habits. 

A few of us who lived in the village did not know 
the first part of the story, except as it was told us 
by some of the old residents. Snatches from Mrs. 
Brady, Mrs. McShane, Mrs. McTavish — and where 
could one find biographers who could put their hearts 
more into their story? — and a word or two from the 
“ Village Helper ” furnished us with the boy’s early 
history. 

“ There’s been lots o’ happenin’s in this here place 
any one of ’em a book could be wrote about,” said 
the Village Helper; “ I’ve been ’round among them for 
a good spell — the folks, know ’em from fust to last, 


WHAT IS MAN? 


11 


ye may say, bein’ on hand when they was born, 
an’ layin’ ’em out when they died, and there isn’t 
much about them that’s worth knowin’ that 1 don’t 
know.” 

Putting the stories together, it was learned that 
Alexander McBain’s father died when his son was 
but a few days old, from what the newspapers in the 
present day would call “ heart-failure,” but in that 
day they were honest enough, or rude enough, ac- 
cording as you think about it, to call his malady 
simply “ drunkenness.” 

There was caste among drinking men then, as now ; 
the respectable tippler was well-dressed, preferred to 
drink his potion from a glass, and generally kept 
himself in a condition to walk home — if he had to 
be carried it was always done after nightfall. To 
this class, it may be said, the father of the boy be- 
longed. Only twice in the memory of the oldest in- 
habitants of the village did he so far forget himself 
as to go yelling like a wild Indian down the main 
street, and that was when his wife was away for a 
week. “ And,” said Mrs. McTavish, when telling this 
incident, “ th’ Bible never said a truer word than, 
6 It is na gude for man to be alone,’ some o’ them 
not even for a week at a time. It is different wi’ 
woman; she knows how to keep her head, an’ get 


12 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


along very well by hersel’ when th’ Lord appoints 
her so to do. But I’m thinkin’ a man’s bein’ alone 
is never by th’ Lord’s appointment, or it wouldna 
work sa ill.” 

Ours was not a Scotch settlement, nor a Scotch 
village; perhaps Granny Neilson was the only one 
among us who could boast of having been born in 
the land of the heather. There were not more than 
half a dozen that had the broad rolling accent of 
the Scot, but such was the character of that half 
dozen we could not very truly write of the village 
and leave them out. We had our warm-hearted Irish, 
our cool-headed English, and also a type of man and 
woman distinctly our own, which type stood strongly 
in the foreground of most of the village doings. 

The other extreme from the father of Alexander 
McBain was fairly represented by Paddy Conley, 
a servant of some Irish lord, who at the death of his 
master had found his way to our Canadian village. 
Paddy was without family and friends, and, to speak 
the cruel truth, he was a whisky-soaked blot on the 
fair pages of our village history. His clothes were 
shabby; it made little difference to him how his 
whisky was served; if he had a preference it was 
for drinking it out of the bottle ; indeed he was seldom 
seen without the neck of a bottle protruding from 


WHAT IS MAN? 


13 


his pocket, and all his shortcomings were witnessed 
by the white light of day. 

We buried Paddy at the county’s expense, when 
Alexander McBain was at college; all the women 
wishing in the depths of their hearts that there was 
a chance for a poor soul to try again. 

It was at a sewing-bee, assembled for the purpose 
of making some clothes for a family of poor chil- 
dren suddenly left motherless, that the women, the 
day of the funeral, discussed the subject of Paddy 
Conley’s future state. When he was sober he would 
have gone out of his way to accommodate any one 
of them, and they seemed unable to drop him from 
their solicitous care. 

It was Mrs. McTavish who was talking, first in 
a low tone and to a few directly around her; then, as 
she grew more earnest, she raised her voice so we 
all could hear her — Mrs. McTavish was a woman 
who would have shone intellectually in a larger 
sphere. 

“ Why, the man took too much, I’m no denying,” 
she was saying, apparently in answer to the remark 
of another, “but his life was shaped by heredity; 
he told me himsel’ that his faither, an’ his grand- 
faither ” — it was remarked in the village that Mrs. 
McTavish talked more “ Scotchy ” when she was 


14 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

very much in earnest — “ before him, both rolled intil 
drunkards’ graves, an’ moulded by environment ” — 
she had found this new word in her recent reading, 
and felt a certain pride in airing it — “ hasn’t the 
very breath o’ th’ daisies o’ th’ field been smothered 
out for the poor fellow, by th’ smell o’ whisky that’s 
always been about him frae th’ cradle till th’ grave; 
where waur his chance ? . I’m no say in’ there 

ain’t good in whisky,” she murmured in a lower tone, 
as if afraid she might be considered to have fanat- 
ical ideas, “ but one kin hae too much o’ a gude 
thing. ... I mind,” she continued, after a sec- 
ond short pause, “ o’ seein’ that man when he was 
sober — which I own was seldom — wi’ as good an’ 
sedate a look on his face as ye’d want to see on an 
ordinary mortal. . . . He would hae been bet- 

ter; he never rolled sin as a sweet morsel under his 
tongue, an’ that’ th’ state o’ th’ wicked — ’cordin’ 
to Job.” 

“ Many a quid of tobacca he rolled as a sweet 
morsel under his tongue,” said Mrs. Brady, as she 
drew her needle through a stiff piece of buckram. 
Mrs. Brady was of Irish extraction, and had a blunt, 
honest way of expressing herself that sometimes hurt 
the sensibilities of the other women. 

“ I wouldn’t call that exactly a sin ” said Mrs. 


WHAT IS MAN? 


15 


Brown, a thin-lipped, careful, precise person — so 
careful and precise that the women, with common 
consent, gave her the work of cutting out the gar- 
ments they were about to sew. “ The Bible speaks 
of sins and mfirmities; I think chewing tobacco 
comes under the head of infirmities ” 

“ I ken fine,” said Mrs. McTavish, as if her mind 
had never wandered from her original thought, “ that 
th’ on’y hope for sinners consists in their bein’ saved 
frae sinnin’; but what th’ Faither may do to save 
them, I’m no sa sure, no sa sure as when I waur 
younger an’ tho’t I knew more. . . . The God 

who is dealin’ wi’ th’ human race is th’ God an’ Faither 
o’ our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

“ Th’ same yesterday, to-day, an’ forever,” whis- 
pered Granny Neilson’s thin, tremulous, old lips to 
her own heart, quite unconscious that it was audible 
to the other women. 

“ I’m remembering,” continued Mrs. McTavish, 
“ when I was a bit girlie, our minister had three 
children. One o’ th’ wee things was no all there — 
water on th’ brain, or somethin’ — an’ one day when 
th’ faither was cornin’ home frae his parish duties, 
th’ two hearty bairns pick-ed each a rose out o’ th’ 
manse garden, an’ went out to meet him, an’ gie 
him th’ bonnie flowers, th’ wee daft thing following 


16 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

off th’ road, stumblin’ among th’ stones an’ roots, 
wi’ a stalk o’ cottonweed an’ a dandelion she had 
plucket by th’ roadside. I mind th’ poor faither took 
th’ roses frae th’ two strong children, an’ thank-ed 
them; but wi’ a great pity in his face he reached 
afar past them, an’ stoopin’ down he took th’ poor 
foolish thing, that never e’en tho’t to offer him 
what she had gathered, up in his arms, an’ carried 
her home. So I’m thinkin’ p’raps th’ Heavenly 
Faither will take His poor foolish things, that were 
born wrong, started off on th’ wrong road an’ 
plucket weeds on th’ highway o’ life in place o’ 
roses, up in His arms, an’ carry them to some more 
sheltered place where they may hae a chance to grow 
intil men after His own heart. No one will make 
me believe, if I am a Presbyterian, that th’ A’mighty 
hae made a human heart better than His own, an’ 
who by searchin’ can find out God? ” 

“ But,” said Granny Neilson, passing her needle 
over to another woman to be threaded — her eyes were 
not so strong as they used to be, but she did all the 
basting — “ if it were our poor daft lad here in the 
village, Crazy Tim, wi’ on’y half his faculties, it 
would be different; shall not the judge of all the 
earth do right? But when one has been given the 
light to ken right from wrong, an’ chooses th’ 


WHAT IS MAN? 


17 


wrong? . . . Th 9 A’mighty hae His condeetions 

for everything,” she added, “ an a road to every 
place; an 9 if we wish th 9 thing we must fill th 9 con- 
deetions, an 9 if we want to reach th 9 place we maun 
walk th 9 road. Would I even reach Toronto if I 
started off toward Buffalo? — without turnin’ square 
’round, an 9 walkin’ th 9 other way? ” 

None of the women seemed inclined to dispute 
this ; there was a short, impressive silence, then the 
conversation drifted into the merits of straight and 
bias frills. 

“ My gracious goodness ! ” said Mrs. Brady to 
another woman, as they were walking home after 
dark from the sewing-bee, “ that was queer talk Mrs. 
McTavish was givin 9 us this afternoon, queer talk, 
sure enough.” 

It was a night in autumn; the gentle flutter of 
falling leaves stirred the air like angels 9 wings, and 
the million stars throbbed in the heavens, as if keep- 
ing time to some unheard music. Something in the 
beauty or mystery of the latter stirred even the ma- 
terialistic soul of Mrs. Brady, and she said, raising 
her eyes to the blue-black canopy overhead, “ When 
we look at them stars, an 9 think how little we know 
about them, what 9 s keepin 9 ’em goin 9 , an 9 what’s keep- 
in 9 ’em from jumpin’ their tracks, like the railcars 


18 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

does sometimes; or runnin’ into one another; an’ 
what’s goin’ to be did with them in the end — why — 
why — why — what’s the use in talkin’? What’s the 
use in us tryin’ to say what’s goin’ to be did with a 
soul? What’s the use?” 

Mrs. Murray, the Squire’s wife, walking home in 
another direction was also attracted by the peculiar 
glory of the starry heavens. Pausing on a dark cor- 
ner of the village street, she whispered* as her eyes 
swept the immensity above her, “ When we consider 
the heavens the work of Thy fingers, the moon and 
stars which Thou hast ordained; what is man that 
Thou art mindful of him? — more, infinitely more 
than the stars,” she added, after a moment’s pause. 
“ Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, 
a little lower, only a little lower.” 

Walking a few rods she found herself in front of 
a small house from the uncurtained window of which 
shone out the light of a lamp. It was a plain shoe- 
maker’s shop; the walls were hung with the appli- 
ances of the owner’s trade, strings of lasts, sides 
of leather, balls of hemp; cobwebs festooned the 
corners. 

It would have been a dingy-looking place but 
for the fact that the central figure, the man seated 
on his cobbler’s bench, was a beatific vision. The ob- 


WHAT IS MAN? 


19 


server forgot the man’s canvas smock and soiled 
hands, gazing spell-bound at the white glow of his 
large-featured face. 

“ The Village Saint,” mentally soliloquised Mrs. 
Murray ; “ it is like gazing at some great, white 
mountain peak to look into his face. What is he 
thinking about at this moment? His face has the 
glow of a St. Francis of Assisi. Wonderful to what 
a height a man can rise ! And yet, should we wonder 
at it? Should not that be the normal condition of man? 
Is it anything more than the expression of the divine 
which is in every man. 6 Thou madest him a little 
lower than the angels, only a little lower . 9 What 
great beings we are ! ” 

A few minutes after Mrs. Murray had passed his 
shop the old shoemaker laid down the “ upper ” of 
a shoe on which he had been stitching, took off his 
apron and canvas smock and hung them on a wooden 
peg over his bench, turned out his lamp, and retired 
to a room in the rear of his shop. 

This room seemed to serve both as a sitting-room 
and a kitchen ; here the old man had lived by himself 
since the death of his wife and only child. The room 
was uncarpeted except that braided mats were spread 
in front of his door and at his chair; but it was 
scrupulously clean, kept so by the Village Helper, 


20 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


it being the one joy of her life to lend a helping 
hand to this aged Saint. 

The owner of the room drew on a soft woollen coat, 
which he kept for the house, placed a teakettle on the 
stove, and began to prepare his evening meal. This 
consisted of a cup of tea, a boiled egg, and two slices 
of toast. 

“ Yes, I’ll have to make three slices,” he said to 
some inner self that had evidently made the sugges- 
tion. “ Pussy, an’ Dicky, an’ Watch will want some.” 

Having spread a white cloth over half the table — it 
had never been spread over the whole of the table since 
the departure of his wife and child — he placed the 
toast and boiled egg upon it, with the old-fashioned 
pewter teapot that held three cups ; then seating him- 
self, he bowed his glory-crowned head and “ said 
grace.” 

He spoke the words aloud, as he used to do when 
his wife and child were still with him, and the very 
canary in the cage, which had belonged to his daugh- 
ter, the cat on the floor, and the coarse-haired yellow 
dog seemed to grow silently reverent while he was 
saying it. 

As soon as the grace was finished, however, the bird 
in the cage began to flutter his wings and emit sharp 
little pleading calls. 


WHAT IS MAN? 


21 


M Yes, Dicky, you’ll get your piece of toast,” said 
the master; and breaking off a portion he rose from 
the table and placed it between the wires of the hang- 
ing cage. 

“ Now, Pussy, an’ Watch, it’s your turn,” and he 
gave a piece to each animal, that sat one on the right 
and the other on the left of his chair. 

“ There now, take it nicely,” he admonished the 
dog, which was last served. “ Ah, ye rascal,” when 
the said dog sniffed at the piece and hesitated, 
“ ye want it buttered ; I know you.” Then spread- 
ing a thin coat of butter over the dog’s piece, he 
added in an admonitory tone, “ Don’t ye know but- 
ter’s gettin’ dear; fall cornin’ on an’ milk growin’ 
scarce? ” 

Having satisfied his humble subjects — the old man 
felt himself to be a king or a god in his small domain 
— he patted the top of his boiled egg with the back 
of his pewter teaspoon, and picking the small pieces 
of broken shell off with his fingers, he began to eat 
his supper. 

The meal progressed happily, the dog and the cat 
and himself getting about equal attention. When it 
was finished the old man cleared away the dishes, and 
spreading a red cloth over his table, he brought out 
his large-printed Bible; while the bird and the dog 


22 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

and the cat rolled themselves into comfortable balls 
of silence. 

Opening the Bible at the Pslams. the old man read, 
sometimes inaudibly, sometimes audibly. The latter 
proceeding aroused the quick hearing of the dog, and 
he glanced up at his master with a look of cheerful 
intelligence in his deep yellow-brown eyes, as if he 
would say, “ Yes, I know that it is so interesting that 
you cannot keep it to yourself.” 

Before closing the book the old man turned to his 
favourite passage in the New Testament, and read 
aloud: “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I 
shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that 
I shall give him shall be in him a well of water spring- 
ing up into everlasting life.” “ Shall never thirst, 
shall never thirst,” he whispered. He closed the book 
and fell on his knees in a rapture of thanksgiving. 

Across the street, down a few doors from the shoe- 
maker’s house, at the same hour that he was engaged 
with his Bible and on his knees, a company of men 
were drinking in the “ Mapleton House.” It was 
Pete Gilooly, the blacksmith, who was “ standing the 
treats,” and a wager had been laid as to which man 
could drink the most whisky. Already they had be- 
come hilarious, regardless of the decencies of life, and 
remembering that it had been Paddy Conley’s funeral 


WHAT IS MAN? 


23 


day, with much boisterous glee they were drinking to 
his enjoyment in the realm to which he had so recently 
gone. 

Late that night the wife of the proprietor of the 
Mapleton House, looking through a small opening 
into the barroom, shuddered, and whispered, “ I never 
knew before that men could make such beasts of them- 
selves. Man can sink lower than any other animal.” 


II 


THE WIDOW’S MITE 
~ EXANDER McBAIN’S father died, leav- 



ing nothing to his young wife but the child. 
He had always scouted the mention of life 


insurance. “ Can I not just as well put odd bits o’ 
money in th’ bank, an’ let it be gatherin’ interest 
there? 99 he had said crabbedly two or three times 
when the subject was urged upon him. Money corn- 
in’ in when a man’s dead is o’er late to do him much 
good.” “ An’ wi’ Scotch stubbornness he persevered 
in his own line o’ thinkin,’ an’ drank up all th’ odd 
bits o’ money,” said Mrs. McTavish. So the mother 
soon found it necessary to stop crying over the long 
white-robed speck of humanity in her arms, and turn 
her attention to some way of earning his living and 
her own. Indeed, when she awoke the first morning 
after her husband’s death, and felt the little presence 
in the bed near her arm, she knew that she still had 
something to live for — something to make life worth 
living. Drawing the warm little head into the hollow 


THE WIDOW’S MITE 


25 


of her shoulder, and the yielding, confiding little form 
that she felt was dependent upon her — upon her , oh, 
the glory of it — for everything, nearer to her ; a fierce 
joy leaped up in her heart, and she cried, “ God, God, 
I’ll take good care of him! I’ll take good care of 
him ! I will , I will." 

The entire village seemed to take a sympathetic 
interest in the baby so young left fatherless. The 
neighbours brought to the young mother lying in 
her white bed, with the wee babe beside her, presents 
of caps, flannel petticoats, pinning-blankets, and 
other indispensable dainties for a baby, and each 
woman made her wise speech regarding the child. 

“ Ye’ll want to discipline yer baby ; be very firm an’ 
pertickler right from th’ start,” advised Mrs. Brown, 
shutting firmly her thin lips, “ to teach him rules. Ye 
have to begin the trainin’ as soon as they’re bom, an’ 
keep at it ; have a time for him to sleep, an’ a time for 
him to wake up, an’ a time for him to eat, and 
a time for him to be washed, and a time for him to be 
dressed. That’s the on’y way — break him at the be- 
ginnin’.” 

“ Goodness gracious ! ” said Mrs. Brady, who was 
present and somehow felt troubled at the thought of 
all those burdens being put upon a little baby, “ give 
the child enough to eat. He'll let you know when he 


26 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


is hungry; let him alone for that. He’ll be growed 
up before you know where you are, an’ be supportin’ 
you. He’ll throw aside dresses for trousers in no 
time. J ust you take care av him, an’ give him plenty 
to eat, an’ yer troubles ’ll soon all be over.” 

“ Dearie me, dearie me, a baby ! ” cried Granny 
Neilson — people were just beginning to call her 
Granny at that time — caressing the cheek of the new- 
born with her fingers; “a wee new soul just fresh 
down frae heaven. Our Saviour himsel’ was once a 
babe ; as I have just been readin ’, 4 He set his foot on 
th’ lowliest o’ our paths that we might hae footprints 
all th’ way ta his home.’ ” 

She looked reflectively out through the window as 
she was speaking, toward the pink sunset in the east ; 
then her mind came back to the mother and the baby, 
and she continued: 

“ Aye, aye, it’s a great work that’s come ta you, 
Jessie, th’ work o’ guidin’ a new soul through th’ 
shoals o’ life. Ye never can do it by yer lone, never . 
Gie th’ boy ta God, Jessie ; he’s yer Widow’s Mite, an’ 
that’s th’ on’y thing ta do wi’ Mites. Gie yer 
Widow’s Mite ta God.” 

It was not customary for the men to show much 
interest in new-born babies, but Peter McKim, being 
a sort of village wiseacre, felt it incumbent upon him, 


THE WIDOW’S MITE 27 

as the child’s own father was dead, to call on the 
widow and advise her in reference to the training of 
her son. 

“ Break his will,” was his injunction. u His will 
must be broke the first thing, if ye’ve got to spank him 
into it ; then, as soon as he is able to read, learn him 
the catechism off by heart; then when he is a little 
older — be keerful an’ don’t wait too long — put him 
to cuttin’ wood an’ keep him at it stiddy. Work, 
work, that’s my receipt for bringin’ up a boy. 4 Satan 
finds some mischief still fur idle han’s to do,’ as the 
poet says.” 

44 There he lies in his unconscious majesty ruling 
the house. Have you ever thought about how every- 
thing in the house has to bend to a baby ? ” said Mrs. 
Murray, the Squire’s wife, the afternoon she came 
over to make her first visit to the new baby, bringing 
little bunches of her choice lavender to lay in the 
bureau among his tiny garments. 44 Look at that 
wee, pure face; everybody is subdued by it. 

44 There is a J ewish legend,” she continued, 44 that 
when Adam was driven from the garden, he asked in 
an agony of sorrow, 6 What shall I bring back to God 
if I ever return? ’ And the angel answered, 4 Bring 
back the face He gave you in the garden, and He 
will once more let you in.’ Ah, this is our great prob- 


28 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


lem, the battle of life, to keep the face He gave us in 
the cradle — the kingdom of heaven face. 

“ He is a very precious gift to you, Mrs. McBain,” 
she added, “ and, like all precious things, he must be 
handled with fear and trembling. There are two 
ways a baby can be hurt — by starving him for want 
of love, and by making him selfish by overmuch care. 
I never look at a baby boy,” she added, “ without 
thinking of Victor Hugo’s lines: 

“ ‘ Opening wide his young soul to life 
And his mouth to kisses.’ 

“ We all here in the village,” she said lightly, 
gathering up her daintily frilled gown, the folds of 
which always emitted an odour of lavender, prepara- 
tory to taking leave, “ must in spite of ourselves have 
a share in filling his young soul with life — he is going 
to judge what manner of thing life is by what he sees 
around him as he is growing day by day, but his 
mother will have to fill his mouth with kisses — for a 
few years at least. 

“ We all here in the village must have a part in fill- 
ing his young soul with life ” Part of Mrs. 

Murray’s parting sentence seemed to repeat itself as 
she walked home in the gloaming. She was just at 
that moment passing the open door of the Mapleton 


THE WIDOW’S MITE 29 

House; a strain of music floated out, and a voice 
within her said, “ The barroom presents the only 
open door in the village which invites growing boys 
and young men to light, cheer, music, companionship 
— and whisky.” She shuddered, and said in an audi- 
ble tone, “ I’m glad my children are not boys.” 

Another woman called to see the new young 
mother and baby, one who was not long a resident of 
the village. She belonged to some sect which the 
village had never before known. She was not a 
Methodist, nor Presbyterian, nor Baptist, nor Epis- 
copalian, and we had meeting houses, and, in fact, 
very little toleration for any others. When she 
looked on the little baby, she exclaimed with uplifted 
hands : 

“ Ah, Mrs. McBain, yer baby boy may be a Christ, 
just as much as any that’s yet been born into the 
world.” 

Politeness kept the women quiet until she left the 
house — she was a stranger — but as soon as she was 
gone, Mrs. McTavish, who had installed herself as 
nurse of the mother and child, said: 

“ Jessie, there’s no mistakin’ yours is a fine boy ; it 
would be hard to find a finer among ordinary babies ; 
but no cohort of angels came to herald his birth ; no 
shepherds keepin’ watch over their flock by night 


30 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


rejoiced over it; no wise men came frae th’ East to 
worship th’ baby, an’ they never did , an’ never shall 
’cept at th’ birth o’ one Baby.” 

After the callers had gone, and even Mrs. Mc- 
Tavish had stepped over to her own home for a few 
moments, the mother lay quietly thinking over what 
each one had said. Train a little bit of a baby ! 
She’d do nothing of the kind ; she’d give a wee thing 
like that all he wanted, in spite of Mrs. Brown’s 
advice. 

She smiled indulgently when she thought of Mrs. 
Brady’s speech about the trousers, and measured with 
her hand the length of the little form in the bed 
beside her. 

Then she agreed fully with Mrs. Murray about 
feeding his mouth with kisses; yes, she would take 
good care of that part of his nurture. 

She smiled again when she thought about the un- 
conscious majesty, and this little mite by her side 
ruling the house. 

She scorned Peter McKim’s interference; break his 
will indeed! the baby had just as good a right to his 
little will as anybody. 

But among all the many bits of advice which came 
from the village women, Granny Neilson’s seemed to 
stand out prominently. “ Gie yer Widow’s Mite ta 


THE WIDOW’S MITE 


31 


God,” “ Gie yer Widow’s Mite ta God,” kept repeat- 
ing itself over and over again in her mind like some 
refrain. 

“ No, no,” she said aloud, after a while, drawing 
closer to her heart the soft, warm bundle in the 
bed beside her. “ No, no, no, I can’t do that; 
God gave him to me; Fit train him, I, his mother. 
I’m the proper person; my precious little Widow’s 
Mite.” 

The widow did not dare to voice her next thoughts, 
but mentally soliloquised, “ Give him to God and He 
would go to disciplinin’ him likely ; he would be sickly 
an’ delicate, an’ like enough he would die before he 
reached his majority. No, no,” again she said 
to herself, “ he’s my baby, Fll bring him up. 
When he’s a man of course I want him to join the 
church.” 

Over in the shanty built on the government land, 
and occupied by the Gilooly family, another baby 
made his advent to the world on the same day that 
Mrs. McBain’s son was born. Very little attention, 
however, was given to this second baby. 

“ I’ve been over to see th’ puir wee thing,” said 
Mrs. McTavish, “ an’ th’ Squire’s wife has sent over 
a wee dress ; th’ mother hadn’t a dud scarcely for th’ 
little creature; an’ th’ Village Helper goes in spells 


32 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


to wash an’ dress him. The stirrin’ wee thing, it 
seems hard not ta welcome him, but one canna hope 
for much frae yon shanty. The boys hae started off 
on th’ track o’ life th’ same day, but it’ll be an uneven 
race — th’ young Gilooly is handicapped wi’ a bad 
inheritance.” 


Ill 


“ THE WEE CROODLIN’ DOO ” 
soon as the mother was strong enough she 



opened a shop and took in sewing, every ef- 
fort prompted by the desire to make a bright 


future for her boy. Away into the small hours her 
light was often seen shining; and the neighbours 
wondered how her frail life endured the burdens she 
imposed upon it. 

Frequently as she sat in the twilight, with her foot 
on the rocker of the wooden cradle, made specially for 
the baby by the village carpenter, the wee one, pink 
and warm, tucked in his soft blankets lying within, 
there would arise before her mental vision a most 
fascinating picture. A dreamy look would creep into 
her still youthful brown eyes, while she gazed as if 
charmed into the dim recesses of the room, and saw 
her baby, a grown man, holding some great office, and 
performing some large work in the world. Some- 
times he was a minister standing in the sacred desk, 
high above the heads of the common people, with 
gown and bands, in all solemnity dispensing the 


S3 


34 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


Word. Sometimes he was a gesticulating politician, 
pacing a wide rostrum, his burning eloquence winning 
the applause of hundreds. Sometimes he was a law- 
yer in court, clearing the falsely accused; and some- 
times he was a judge on the bench. She even sighed 
once because the form of government in the British 
dominions would not permit of her lad occupying the 
highest position in the kingdom. 

She had been disappointed in the mandhood em- 
bodied in her husband; she never acknowledged this 
disappointment in so many words, but at times, in the 
press of a heavy day, she would suddenly drop her 
work, snatch her baby from the cradle, and strain him 
to her bosom, whispering: 

“ I’ll have pride in my son ! — bone o’ my bone, flesh 
o’ my flesh — he’ll grow up to be a man after my own 
heart ! I have him in my arms to make of him what 
I choose ! 99 

She gave him his daily bath, handling his small 
body as if it had been a piece of frail and precious 
china; she dressed and undressed him with her own 
hands, jealously guarding him from strangers shar- 
ing in this labour of love. The little naked body of 
her child was a thing of tender beauty in the eyes of 
the mother, and the very sight of the tiny dresses 
filled her with emotions unspeakable. Before many 


“THE WEE CROODLIN’ DOO 55 


35 


weeks his baby lips, beginning to purse themselves 
into intelligent little “ coos,” and his tender clinging 
fingers twining around her own, made even stronger 
appeals to the mother’s heart for more strenuous ef- 
fort toward providing a competency for the boy’s 
future. 

One day her minister, the Rev. Nathaniel Vickers, 
dropped into the little home when she was just com- 
pleting the interesting work of dressing her baby. 
Seating himself beside the cooing boy, just fresh from 
his bath, the minister took one of the little pink 
fingers in his hand and said to the mother, “ Would 
you take a thousand dollars for this? ” The mother 
paused a moment as if she could scarcely grasp the 
awful meaning of what he said, then she answered, 
“ No.” Touching the two fingers, the minister said, 
“Would you take two thousand dollars for these?” 
Almost indignantly the mother answered again, 
“ No.” Then clasping in his the chubby, tender lit- 
tle hand, he said, “ Would you take ten thousand dol- 
lars for this?” Unhesitatingly the answer again 
was, “ No.” “ Your baby, then,” said the minister, 
“ is; worth ten thousand dollars to you ; you’re quite 
a rich woman.” 

After the minister had gone the young mother 
gathered her child to her bosom and cried in an 


36 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


ecstasy of joy, while the tears brimmed her eyes, 
“ Ah, he might have said ten million dollars and not 
have exaggerated! Not a mite!” 

She fashioned his small garments, her needle keep- 
ing time to a music in her heart; she embroidered 
dainty scallops for soft round throat and wrists; she 
knitted stockings for rose-leaf feet, and while she 
wrought she thought of the gentle Judean woman, 
the mother of a Saviour, and she whispered in her 
heart, 44 She, too, was the mother of a baby boy.” 

As soon as the length of the boy’s hair would per- 
mit, one of her pastimes was to brush it into a curl on 
the top of his small head ; then holding him at arms’ 
length, she would exclaim with her heart in her voice : 

“ Mother’s wee man ! Mother’s wee man ! ” 

Then she would usually repeat some foolish little 
lines that ended in this couplet: 

“ 4 Look in his face, and guess if you can. 

Why mother is proud of her little man.’ ” 

After this she would hurriedly kiss his soft cheek, 
place him on a mat on the floor, with a teaspoon or a 
rattlebox, or something with which he could not hurt 
himself, and snatch up her sewing, which she felt had 
been neglected too long. 

When the sewing, however, was rolled away for the 


“THE WEE CROODLIN’ DOO ” 37 

night, and the lamp was lighted, and the widow had 
shut all doors against the outside world, her great 
joy was to seat herself in her rocking-chair, with her 
little baby clasped in her arms, and sing to him some 
of the old Scotch songs she had heard her mother sing. 
She was very proud of her Scotch ancestry, and she 
was determined that her son should be early imbued 
with a knowledge and spirit of the same. The first 
year of his life, if you had been allowed within the 
sacred precincts of that sitting-room, you would have 
heard her lilting voice, with the penetrating quality 
that is peculiar to Scotch voices, singing: 

“ ‘ Will ye no fa’ asleep the night. 

Ye restless little loon? 

The sun has lang been oot o’ sicht, 

An’ gloamin’s darkin’ doon. 

There’s claes to mend, the hoose to clean — 

The nicht I’ll no get through; 

For oh, ye winna close your een — 

Ye wee croodlin’ doo. 

“Spurrin’ wi’ yer restless feet, 

My very legs are sair; 

Clautin* wi’ yer buffie hands, 

Towslin’ mammy’s hair. 

I’ve gi’en ye meat wi’ sugar sweet; 

Your little crappie’s fou; 

Cuddle doon, ye stoorie loon — 

Ye wee croodlin’ doo. 


38 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


“ Twistin’ round and round again, 

Warsling’ aff my lap. 

And pussy on the hearthstane. 

As sound as ony tap — 

Dicky birdin’ gaen to rest, 

A’ asleep but you; 

Nestle into mammy’s breast. 

Ye wee croodlin’ doo. 

“Guid be praised, the battle’s by. 

And sleep has won at last! 

How still the puddlin’ feetie lie. 

The buffie hands at rest! 

And safely fa’s the silken fringe 
Aboon thy een o’ blue — 

Blessin’s on my bonnie bairn. 

Me wee croodlin’ doo.’ ” 

There was something soothing in both words and 
music ; the baby was always asleep when the song was 
finished. 

Only on one occasion did the widow vary the * ong ; 
on Christmas night she sang: 

“ 4 A child was born in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem ; 

The wise men came to welcome him; a star stood o’er the 
gable; 

An’ there they saw the King o’ kings, no longer thronged wi’ 
angel wings. 

But croodlin’ like a little babe, and cradled in a stable.’” 


“ THE WEE CROODLIN’ DOO ” 


39 


“ Ah, yes,” she said, hugging her baby when she 
had finished the verse, “ our Saviour himself was a wee 
croodlin’ doo, an’ na doot Mary had to sing him to 
sleep with some bit song — Hebrew in place o’ Scotch ; 
but all the same it would be a song o’ her own people. 
Yes, yes, in a mother’s arms the wee baby Christ lay, 
from a mother He learned to lisp His first word. Out 
on the fields of Nazareth she saw Him play. Ah, ah, 
she was like other mothers who love.” 

Shortly after the boy’s hair was long enough to 
comb into a curl on the top of his head, arrangements 
were made for his christening. The village babies 
were usually christened much younger, but the widow 
would not have her baby undergo this time-honoured 
ceremony until she could afford what she considered 
a suitable frock — she could not exactly call it a 
christening robe , for robes were usually long, and the 
baby by this time was wearing short skirts some 
months. In the course of time a new short frock, 
trimmed, as befitted the momentous occasion for which 
it was intended, with finer embroidery than had yet 
adorned his small person, occupied his mother’s spare 
moments for weeks, not to say months, in the making. 
A tiny pair of red shoes, intended to peep cunningly 
from beneath the short frock, were carefully selected 
from the shoe stock of the village general store. 


40 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


When everything was in readiness, the widow one 
afternoon carried the baby over to leave him in care 
of Mrs. McTavish while she went out to invite 
the elders of the church and the minister to the 
christening. 

“ Oh, Agnes,” she said as she kissed the baby and 
placed him for an hour in her neighbour’s keeping, 
“ because of his dear little golden head, if ye’ll believe 
me, I notice all th’ wee heads I see on the street, an’ 
everywhere else, an’ they all look beautiful to me. 
If I had my way I’d paint a halo ’round every baby’s 
head, same as some o’ the great artists put ’round 
the head o’ our Saviour. Aren’t they all sacred, the 
darlin’s, with their wee white saintly faces? I can- 
not keep the tears back, Agnes, when I look into 
babies’ eyes, thinkin’ o’ my own baby’s two wide earn- 
est eyes that seem at times to look me through and 
through.” 

“ I ken fine how ye feel,” returned Mrs. McTavish. 
“ Haven’t I owned a baby o’ ma own in ma 
time? ” 

The widow was a little woman, with one of those 
wiry Scotch figures that never grow stout, and when 
she was dressed in her black merino Sunday gown, 
and black bonnet with the white border, and long 
clinging widow’s veil, she presented a sightly picture 


“THE WEE CROODLIN’ DOO ” 41 

to the men whom she was honouring. She went to 
each with the carefully prepared little speech: 

“ I would be very pleased to have ye take tea with 
me the cornin’ Friday evenin’, the occasion o’ my boy’s 
christenin’.” 

Cakes, preserves and pickles of every variety were 
prepared for the supper which was to grace the occa- 
sion. Mrs. McTavish’s armchair and silver cake- 
basket, along with another neighbour’s silver spoons, 
were borrowed. Not but the widow had silver spoons, 
that had once belonged to her grandmother, of her 
own, and a cake-basket of her own, but she liked to 
look affluent on this evening of evenings. 

Mrs. McTavish was invited to keep the widow in 
countenance among the men, and to assist in their 
entertainment. 

When the minister and the elders, each man dressed 
in his best Sunday suit, were all assembled in the little 
parlour, Mrs. McTavish carried in the silver bowl, a 
rare old piece of silverware brought from Scotland, 
— an heirloom in the family for many generations, 
and considered invaluable — filled with water, while the 
mother followed with the babe. The minister rose to 
his feet, took the white-f rocked, red-shoed baby into 
his capacious arms, dipped his large fingers into the 
water in the silver bowl, dropped some of it on the 


42 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


little unconscious head, and calling him his maternal 
grandfather’s name, he said in the slow and solemn 
tones of a follower of Knox, “ Alexander, I baptise 
thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost,” while the mother looked on with glistening 
eyes and heightened colour, forgetting all the trouble 
of her life in the joy that she was the mother of a man 
child. 

That night after the minister and elders had left 
the house, the two women who had entertained them 
sat down to talk over the events of the evening; the 
baby having been tucked away in his trundle bed an 
hour before. 

“ My, Agnes,” said the widow, her whole face 
vivified by the night’s excitement, causing her to look 
fully ten years younger, “ did you notice how fine the 
wee boy acted in the minister’s arms? — like a wee 
angel. His little face was as serious and solemn as 
if he knew all about what was goin’ on — an’ what it 
meant — the darlin’. An’ perhaps he did, who knows ? 
Perhaps he did. The wee souls fresh from God may 
know more than we worldly-wise people ken anything 
about. And did you see, Agnes, how fine he stuck 
out his wee feet and showed off the pretty red shoes 
to perfection; weren’t they beauties? And the em- 
broidery on his frock — I could most see the rosebuds 


“THE WEE CROODLIN’ DOO ” 


43 


as if they were growin’ on the bush, and the veins in 
the rose leaves. I felt well repaid by the appearance 
of that frock for every stitch I took in its makin’. 

“ Yes, as you say, Agnes, everything went off well ; 
the supper was good, an’ all the men an’ the minister 
ate hearty; I could not be better pleased. But of 
course it was just as it ought to be at the christenin’ 
of my son.” 

“ Ah,” said Mrs. McTavish boastfully, when talk- 
ing afterward to the neighbours, “ it might ha’ been 
a young prince that was bein’ christened, th’ way he 
was covered wi’ embroideries — all his own mother’s 
needlework. An’ th’ supper that that woman spread 
for th’ minister an’ th’ elders — th’ pies an’ cakes, th’ 
fine dishes an’ silver — some of it borrowed, of course 
— I don’t see how any rich woman could ha’ had more. 
Dear, dear, it was a releegious exercise, an’ I’m hopin’ 
it was well pleasin’ in th’ eyes o’ th’ Lord,” she added, 
as if she felt some compunction for dwelling at such 
length on the earthly side of it. 

At a late hour on the evening of the christening, 
after the two women had washed the china and pol- 
ished the silver, the mother placed the silver bowl on 
a bracket which was fastened in a conspicuous place 
on the parlour wall between the windows. Beside the 
bowl she put the little red shoes. 


44 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


“ They’re for the laddie when he’s a man,” she said 
to Mrs. McTavish, “ to keep his heart tender, and 
remind him of this occasion in his life. He’ll be 
awful proud of them then.” 

Mrs. McTavish frequently told that in after years 
when the boy was old enough to understand; the 
proud mother often related the whole story of that 
christening, enlarging on the priceless value of the 
silver bowl, which belonged to her grandmother’s 
grandmother ; and she would always conclude by 
saying : 

“ Many generations have been christened out of 
that bowl, and it shall go down to you, Alexander, 
and to your children’s children after you.” 

“ I was terrible well pleased ta hear that ye had 
publicly gi’en yer baby ta God in baptism, Jessie,” 
said Granny Neilson the first time she met the widow 
after Sandy’s christening. 

The widow started — she had not thought of the 
ceremony in that way; she had her baby christened 
because all the church people christened their babies, 
and she thought it the proper thing to do. 

66 1 hope,” she mused as Granny Neilson walked 
away, “ that he won’t grow delicate an’ sickly now.” 
Indeed, with that fear in her heart, she watched him 
closely for several months afterward. 


“THE WEE CROODLIN’ DOO ” 


45 


The little baby over in the shanty on the govern- 
ment land was never christened. His grandfather, 
old Bill Gilooly, had died when the child was but a 
few weeks old, and as a mark of ancestral respect the 
baby’s mother had given him the name “ Bill.” Wil- 
liam Henry Gilooly was the whole of the name, but 
nobody ever had time to say it all. 


IV 


SANDY 



HE next event in the boy’s life, and therefore 


in his mother’s, was the taking of his first 


step alone. Of all these recurring events 


she kept a record on the flyleaf at the back of the 
“ family Bible,” the same in which the boy’s birth was 
registered. The following were some of the entries: 

“ Feb. 6 — The dear can reach out for things, and 
touch his own wee toes.” 

“ March 3 — The laddie cut his first wee tooth.” 

“ June 5 — My boy’s christening day — I’ve called 
him Alexander, after his grandfather.” 

“ Aug. 10 — He can play peek-a-boo round the 
back of a chair.” 

“ Aug. 15 — Alexander took his first steps alone.” 

44 Aug. 18 — He keeked at me to-day from behind 
his pinny.” 

“ Sept. 1 — The pet spoke his first word.” 

Only on one occasion, after the event of his chris- 
tening, did he wear the elaborate white frock and the 
red shoes ; that was when a “ photograph car ” passed 


4*6 


SANDY 


47 


through that vicinity, and stopped for a week in the 
village. Then the baby was arrayed again, just as 
when the minister had taken him in his arms to 
sprinkle him with the baptismal water, and carried 
down street to the “ photograph car ” to have his 
“ likeness 55 taken. 

A new entry was made on the flyleaf of the family 
Bible. 

“ Aug. 30 — The pretty boy had his likeness taken 
to-day. He wore his christening frock and shoes.” 

Very soon after he began to toddle around the vil- 
lage seemed to naturally fall into the habit of calling 
him “ Sandy 99 ; because he was Scotch, and because 
his father, and his grandfather, and his great grand- 
father had been called “ Sandy.” He was a “ prom- 
isin’ little chap,” they all said who remembered his 
childhood; an interesting child with timid blue eyes, 
and light hair like silken floss. 

There were those who said afterward that the hair 
was too soft and silken to be on a male head ; but Mrs. 
Brady said that was 44 puttin’ blame on Providence,” 
and she never did believe in that. At the time no one 
thought of anything but the child’s beauty. 

It was some months after this that Mrs. McTavish 
called one evening on the widow just at the hour she 
was putting Sandy to bed. He could talk now in a 


48 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


manner quite intelligible — to his mother at least, and 
she was teaching him his first prayer. He was kneel- 
ing at her knee clad in his little white nightgown, with 
his small pink hands clasped in the form of supplica- 
tion, when the neighbour, after a light knock, opened 
the door and entered. 

When she saw what was going on, she placed her 
finger to her lips and dropped into the nearest chair. 
The mother, nodding silently to her visitor, continued : 

“ Now, dearie, try again. Now I lay me ” 

“ Now I lay me,” said the sweet baby voice. 

“ Down to sleep ” went on the mother. 

“ Down to sleep,” lisped Sandy. “ The chickens 
are asleep now, too,” he cried with interest. 

“ Yes, dearie, but go on with yer prayer now. I 

pray the Lord ” 

“ I p’ay the Lo’d ” 

“ My soul to keep ” 

“ My soul to keep ” 

“ If I should die ” 

“ Sandy won’t die,” whimpered the baby. 

“ No, darlin’,” said the mother, clasping his hands 
in a spasm almost of fear, “ Sandy won’t die ; his 
mother could not live without him. Now, pet, finish 

it. If I should die ” 

“ Sandy’s sleepy,” cried the little suppliant. 


SANDY 


49 


“Well, well, that’s very good for the first,” said 
the mother, picking him up and tucking him with a 
kiss into his trundle bed, which stayed in the sitting- 
room until such time as the widow was ready to retire 
to her own room ; then she rolled it in. 

“ What pure wee things they are when they are 
babies,” said Mrs. McTavish, touched by what she 
had seen and heard ; “ ef boys could on’y be kept so, 
Jessie.” 

“ Oh, I’ll keep my boy so,” returned the widow. 

“ There’s such terrible temptations in th’ world to 
draw th’ lads astray,” said the neighbour sadly. 

“ Not my lad,” returned the widow confidently. 
“ I have him in my arms — to myself to train as I will. 
I have no fears for my boy, Agnes; what can draw 
him out of his mother’s arms ? ” 

The baby boy over in the shanty on the govern- 
ment land never learned a prayer; his mother never 
said any, and it never occurred to her to teach little 
Bill to pray. 

In the years that followed Alexander’s mother 
tended him through whooping-cough, measles, mumps, 
and all the general ills youthful flesh is heir to, with 
a solicitude which only a mother with one child can 
understand. 

Little Bill Gilooly, as soon as he had learned to 


50 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

walk, did not choose to be confined to the house, not 
even to the government land on which his cabin home 
was built. He soon discovered, as his small bare 
brown feet went wandering through the byways and 
highways of the village, that Sandy McBain was 
about his own age, loved,the same things that he loved : 
strings, and kites, and nails, and dead rats; and 
hated the things that he hated: to have his face 
washed, his boots put on, or to be taken for a girl; 
and he and Sandy struck up a friendship. Bill was 
collarless, almost shirtless, and his short red hair 
stood up straight around his head in a manner that 
showed slight acquaintance with a comb, while his 
playmate was dressed with the most scrupulous care. 
But at three years of age things of the outward man 
are of small consequence to the deeper question of 
affinity of soul; and despite the widow’s disapproval 
her son and the blacksmith’s child could not be kept 
apart. 

Sandy grew fast, as all healthy young things do, 
and was scarcely out of short skirts when he was sent 
to school. His mother early determined that her son 
should receive an education; she had an unexpressed 
idea that her husband would never have gone to the 
excesses he did if he had been educated. Then the 
widow had some college men in a branch of her family. 


SANDY 


51 


and she was determined that her son would equal any 
of his predecessors. 

The day he started was an eventful one in the 
mother’s calendar. With her own hands she brushed 
the flossy hair into many little curls, buttoned his 
collar, and tied his necktie, crowning all by placing 
jauntily on his small head his “ wee Scotch bonnet.” 
She had ready in a little cotton bag with a running- 
string a “ piece ” for him to eat at recess — a slice off 
a fresh loaf, made by her own hands from “ spring- 
wheat flour ” — considered in the village to be a deli- 
cacy — carefully buttered and spread over with some 
of her choice huckleberry jam. 

“ An’ many’s th’ day,” said Mrs. McTavish, “ wi 
th’ hot sun beatin’ down from above, an’ th’ briars an’ 
brambles scratchin’ her han’s an’ tearin’ her skirts 
from below, did th’ mother, wi’ her two-quart tin pail 
hingin’ on her arm, clamber over th’ brush an’ fallen 
trees, an’ wade thro’ marsh, stoopin’ an’ bendin’ after 
thae same bit blue berries. She always got a great 
ready for th’ berry in’ — ’twas ’bout all th’ luxuries 
any o’ us could hae throu’ th’ winter — th’ jam we 
made frae th’ berries we picked th’ precedin’ summer. 
’Twas said by some that there were rattlesnakes in th’ 
huckleberry marsh, an’ th’ widow was terrible ’fraid 
o’ snakes, an’ always carried a wee brown paper bag 


52 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


o’ bakin’ soda in case she got bit. I can see her now, 
steppin’ gingerly ’long, startin’ at this, an’ jumpin’ 
at that, studyin’ every spot o’ ground afore she set 
her foot until ’t. It waur a sore trial to her that 
berry-pickin’. An’ goodness me! she’d no more let 
Sandy come intil that huckleberry marsh than she’d 
let him go intil a wild beasts’ den. I mind once,” 
she continued reminiscently, “ we were out togither, 
an’ somethin’ tweaked her on th’ ankle joint. I think 
it waur more than likely a bramble-bush, or a bit sharp 
root, but she’d hae it that a rattlesnake bit her. She 
droppit on th’ nearest log, an’ whippit off her shoe 
an’ stockin’ (she was a slim bit body, an’ could act 
quick)’ an’ clappit th’ soda til th’ scratch, which 
’twould take a miscroscope to see. She declared 
some green matter, th’ snake’s p’ison, came out o’ th’ 
injured part after th’ soda was pit on. I wouldna 
want to swear til it mysel’, but onyway, she waur 
sateesfied, an’ we went on wi’ our berry-pickin’ — I 
mind we got eight quarts that day.” 

With her hand over her eyes, the mother stood in 
the door and watched the little Sandy that first day 
until he passed out of sight around a corner, whisper- 
ing in her heart : “ I’ve sent my one treasure out into 
the world, the great big world. Ah, I know he’ll do 
great things for it yet, my clever little man.” 


V 


MAGGIE 

AT the corner Sandy was joined by Maggie 
Zjk Thompson. Maggie lived around on an- 
other quiet street of the village, was the 
same age as Sandy, but, being a braver, stronger 
nature, had started to school six months earlier. His 
helpless, timid air appealed to her, and going up to 
him she took his soft little yielding fingers into her 
own firm little brown hand, and thus led him into the 
crowd of children surrounding the schoolhouse. 

When little Bill Gilooly, whom his mother, to get 
him out of her way, had started to school some months 
earlier, saw Maggie coming into the schoolyard lead- 
ing Sandy McBain by the hand, he stared at them 
with his two round Irish blue eyes, something closely 
resembling a frown gathering down between them; 
and in a few seconds he stole around behind Sandy 
and gave him a sharp pinch. He had not seen as 
much of Sandy since he had begun to go to school, 
and his friendship for him at that moment received 
a severe wrench. Sandy, looking very much grieved, 
53 


54 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


stuck his thumb in his mouth and began to cry ; and 
when Maggie learned the reason of his tears she flew 
at little Bill and gave him three hard slaps, emphasis- 
ing each one with a vindictive : 

“ There ! there ! there ! ” 

But what were girls’ slaps! Pooh! little Bill 
smiled in a superior way, and looked as if he would 
have enjoyed a dozen more — if Maggie gave them. 

That night when Maggie was kneeling by her bed- 
side saying her prayers, and had gotten through 
“ Our Father,” and “ God bless father and mother,” 
she added, “ and wee Sandy McBain, too ; he’s on’y 
a little fellow, God, an’ won’t need much — but don’t 
bless little Bill Gilooly; he pinched Sandy to-day. 
Amen ! ” 

At the same moment little Bill was tumbling into 
his small bunk in his mother’s kitchen, smiling com- 
placently and saying within himself, “ I gev him one 
good pinch, annyway — he had no business holdin’ 
Maggie’s hand.” 

Precocious Maggie, just learning to read and write, 
was keeping a diary ; her mother had read her a story 
about another little girl doing so, and Maggie would 
not be satisfied until she had a blank book, in which, 
with pen and ink, she recorded the events which oc- 
curred in her small world. This day when she came 


MAGGIE 55 

home from school she wrote in large scrawling 
characters : 

“ TooK wEE SaNdy McBain tO sChool Ti-Day. 
i MinDeD hiM All Day. i Like HiM rEal WeLL. 
He hAs YeLLow CurLs. i Slapped BiLL GiLLooLy 
For PinChin Him.” 

A week later, each day of which she had spent at- 
tending to Sandy’s wants, she wrote again : 

“ SanDy goeS to SchooL wiTh Me everY Day 
Now. i like HiM Terrible WeLL. WhEn We aRe 
Big i Guess We WiLL Get mArriEd, We LiKe Each 
OthEr So wEll.” 

Somehow she felt it to be her work to stand by him 
all through the earlier school years; his weakness 
seemed to make demands on her strength, and many 
a time when some larger boy was taking advantage 
of him at marbles or a game of ball, Maggie would 
step in, snatch the marbles or ball, as the case might 
be, and refuse to return them until fair-play was 
established. This was generally speedily accom- 
plished, for even the “big boys” were intimidated 
by the little fury, and quickly yielded to her demands, 
which they knew in their hearts were right. 

“ The wee girl protector saw that he always got his 
rights,” said Mrs. McTavish. “ I can see her now 
wi’ her bright red cheeks, sort o’ deep rich red, some-' 


56 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


thing like the heart o’ a piney rose, none o’ yer fady 
pinks, small brown curly head, an’ flashin’ browm 
eyes. Nothin’ seemed to frighten Maggie out o’ 
doin’ what she thought she ought to do, — even when 
it meant givin’ a beatin’ to a boy. She parted more 
fightin’ lads, pullin’ ’em apart by main force, than 
all the rest o’ th’ school pit together. Mony a time 
she saved Sandy frae a thrashin’.” 

Maggie’s mother was an artist in her way ; she had 
always wanted to paint; had looked wistfully at 
crimsoning clouds and golden sunsets, but the only 
means which had come within her reach of expressing 
her love for colour was in dressing her only child, 
her wee dark-eyed lassie, in bright frocks. So Mag- 
gie grew up a sort of bird of paradise in the village, 
the wonder and admiration of all the boys and girls. 

“ Then,” said Mrs. McTavish, “ she was a kin’ o’ 
tom-boy; played ball an’ jumped on passin’ waggons, 
climbed shed-roofs an’ fences; an’ th’ boys all like-ed 
her. One o’ th’ worst thrashin’s Sandy ever got was 
frae Bill Gilooly, because Bill had seen Maggie one 
day at th’ school give him a bite out o’ her apple. 
This was when they were all bits o’ things. Maggie 
had gone home from school that day early, an’ Bill 
took his chance at Sandy.” 

The entry in Maggie’s diary on this occasion was : 


MAGGIE 


57 


“ i Hate tHat Bill GilooLy, He HurT Poor SandY. 
Let Me CatCh Him Once, i Won’t speAk to Him 
For A whoLe Day.” 

Sunday school followed close upon day school, and 
each recurring day of rest Maggie and Sandy 
trudged to the infant class, hand in hand. Sandy 
had a good memory and always repeated his text 
without a flaw. Maggie was more careless ; she 
stumbled and faltered, forgot and repeated. Sunday 
school was the only place where Sandy could feel him- 
self Maggie’s superior, and he enjoyed going very 
much. He could never forget the day when he said 
through, without even pausing to take breath, the 
text, “ As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks 
so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” When it 
came Maggie’s turn, she said “ painteth ” instead of 
“ panteth,” and she did not know that a hart was only 
a deer ; she thought it was that thing that thumped 
up and down in people’s breasts. Sandy reminded 
her of her mistakes two or three times on the road 
home. “ You didn’t know that a hart was on’y a 
deer. 1 knew that,” said Sandy, “ long ago. An’ 
I knew that big word panteth — oh, l-o-n-g ago.” 
Maggie tossed her brown curls and said nothing. 

Another day the lesson was about the Prodigal Son, 
and Sandy, as usual, said his verse perfectly : “ When 


58 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and 
had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and 
kissed him.” When it came Maggie’s turn, she 
blurted out excitedly, “ When he was yet a great 
way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and 
ran, and fell on his neck and broke it.” Poor Mag- 
gie, that day she had been running with her best china 
doll in her hands, stubbed her toe and fell, with the 
result that her precious doll’s neck was broken. She 
had suffered keenly the loss, and naturally she 
thought that falling on a neck meant breaking it. 
She was quite unprepared for the laugh from the 
entire class which greeted her effort. 

That evening this entry was put in the diary : 

“ SaNdy Thinks He’s sMarteR ThaN Me BecaUse 
He kNew His vErsE BetteR in SuNdaY SchooL, 
BuT i Know i’m smArter Than hiM in Everything 
But Verses, i Don’t care. I Would Rather HaVe 
Sandy BeAt Me Than Any othEr Boy.” 

Even after he had grown to be a man, that triumph 
over Maggie stood out prominently among Alex- 
ander’s memory pictures. 

As soon as he was able to walk, the widow had taken 
her son to church. 

“ It was a sightly thing to see his fair wee head in 
the pew,” said Mrs. McTavish. “ Whiles he would 


MAGGIE 


59 


take quiet naps wi’ his yellow head on his mother’s 
lap, or nestlin’ against her arm ; an’ whiles he 
would amuse himself turnin’ th’ leaves o’ her hymn- 
buik.” 

The library in Maggie’s home offered scant attrac- 
tions to a hungry young searcher after novelty. In 
the small bookcase in the sitting-room there were a 
few heavy biographies of church dignitaries, a con- 
cordance and a dictionary of the Bible, a “ History 
of the World,” and a copy of “ Pilgrim’s Progress.” 
The latter was illustrated, and for this reason was 
the only book which claimed the attention of the one 
child in the home. There was a picture of Giant 
Despair seated in a dim and gruesome corner, sur- 
rounded by skulls ; this picture Maggie studied often 
with fascinated horror. She would like to have had 
Sandy gaze at it along with her, but he always cried 
at sight of it, and wanted to go home. So Maggie 
dreamed and dreamed, all by herself, about that awful 
giant that could turn living men into skeletons and 
skulls. When she had not been good during the day, 
she always imagined that, in some mysterious way, 
Giant Despair came out of the book, stepped down 
from the bookcase, and was standing in the dark by 
her bedside. Indeed, the grim visage of the great 
giant, as he was portrayed in the book, presented 


60 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

himself to Maggie at times all through her grown-up 
years. 

When she had any trouble with the little Sandy, 
when she could not get him to immediately obey her 
wishes, all she had to say was, “ Giant Despair will 
get you,” and Sandy would at once shove his little 
hand into her firmer one, and refrain from further 
opposition. 

Sandy had also his little threat which he wielded 
with great success over Maggie; when he was deter- 
mined to have his way, and could not get her to yield, 
he would cry : 

“ I’ll eat caterpillars an’ worms, I will ; smooth 
ones an’ woolly ones ! ” 

At this threat Maggie’s sensitive soul would at once 
shrink into submission. 

Sandy was not without brains, and did fairly well 
at the public school, which fact caused his mother to 
conclude that he was a prodigy. 

“ The fact was,” said Mrs. McTavish, “ she tho’t 
there was not such another bairn in under th’ sun. 
There she would sit in church gazin’ at that boy 
who sat by her side, more than at the minister, 
straightenin’ his necktie if it got a bit awry, slippin’ 
him a peppermint if he grew sleepy or restless, lickin’ 
her finger an’ smoothin’ back a front lock o’ his hair 


MAGGIE 61 

that was a km o’ cow-lick an 5 inclined to be stubborn. 
My, I fear she made a god o’ th’ child! It was 
enough to make the Almighty jealous. Then when 
th’ sermon was over, she would open up the psalter 
and give him one side o’ th’ buik to hold, so impor- 
tant-like ; an’ we all around could hear her whisperin’ 
till him, 6 Sing, son, like a wee man.’ Th’ boy was 
no a bad singer in thae days ; he had what I call a 
good Scotch voice; you can detect that voice even in 
a bairn’s singin’ — a bit hard. But, like everything 
else he did, his mother tho’t he could do it better than 
anybody else, an’ she was terrible proud o’ his gift. 
I mind her makin’ him sing to show off when company 
came till th’ house. He knew th’ words o’ th’ one 
hundred an’ twenty-first psalm better than th’ others, 
an’ he would stand in th’ middle o’ th’ sittin’-room 
floor an’ pipe up in his shrill little child’s voice : 

“ ‘ I to th’ hills will lift mine eyes, 

From whence doth come mine aid. 

My safety cometh from the Lord, 

Who heaven an’ earth hath made. 

Thy foot he’ll not let slide, nor will 
He slumber that thee keeps. 

Behold he that keeps Israel, 

He slumbers not, nor sleeps.’ 


“ Dear, dear, it’s awesome to think on — his foot 


62 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


did slide, after all. Th’ Lord never keeps a* body 
from sliding I’m thinkin’, unless th’ body is willin’ 
himsel’ to be kept.” 

As soon as Sandy started to school the mother be- 
gan to practise many bitter economies to save money 
for his further education. The neighbours who 
chanced into the house about meal time noticed that 
she ate her bread without any butter, put no sugar 
in her tea, or on her green-apple sauce, and, as 
Mrs. McTavish said, “ Fair starved herself for that 
bairn.” 

When very young, Sandy was not conscious of 
these economies; all he knew was that the fresh pat 
of butter was always by his plate, and the spoonful 
of sugar in his apple sauce ; was he not “ Mother’s 
only man ” ? and if he grew conscious with advancing 
years, by that time he had begun to look upon the 
indulgence as a right — perhaps by reason of his ap- 
proaching manhood and supposed greater work in 
the world. 

He was still a very small lad when in his secret 
heart he was congratulating himself on the superior- 
ity of his sex. How could he think otherwise when 
he heard the neighbours say many a time : 

“ How fortunate, Mrs. McBain, that yer bairn is 
a boy.” 


MAGGIE 63 

To this he noticed his mother always gave glad 
assent. 

Indeed, one day he heard one of the women say, in 
an undertone which he was supposed not to hear : 

“ Ye ought to be proud o’ yer boy, such a fine boy, 
Mrs. McBain ; he’s worth a dozen o’ girls.” 

How could he doubt it? — and he didn’t. 

More than once when he was playing with Maggie, 
and they differed about something, he said to her 
with a superior air, “ You're only a girl.” 

It was a day to be remembered in his experience 
when he was thought old enough to bring home his 
mother’s cow. He felt a little timid about going 
alone the first time; there was a wide green pasture 
field to be crossed before the cow could be reached, 
as she always insisted on standing at the back of the 
field, so it was decided to ask Maggie to go with him. 
After that it became her daily joy to accompany him, 
and his daily joy to have her do so. They had a 
green-banked pond to pass, on which were always to 
be found some ducks ; and these they had to stop and 
look at every time. It was years after, when Maggie 
was a woman grown, and far from the scenes of her 
childhood, that she sometimes used to repeat silently 
to herself the foolish little lines : 


64 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


“ * Four ducks on a pond, 

A grass bank beyond — 

A blue sky of spring, 

White clouds on the wing. 

How little a thing 
To remember for years, 

To remember with tears ! * ” 

After the two children had passed the pond, they 
wandered hand in hand out over the grass-grown 
fields in search of the cow ; talking over such weighty 
subjects as where the wind came from — and where 
the flowers went w T hen they died — and why the clouds 
were up so high instead of the nice woolly-looking 
things being low enough down to be jumped into — 
and who built the fire in the sun — and who made God. 

When Maggie thought of these talks in after years 
there were four other lines that insisted in coming to 
her memory — and over and over again, perhaps for 
a whole half day, something within would be repeat- 
ing: 

“ ‘ When potatoes were in blossom, 

And the new hay filled the mows. 

Sweet the paths we trod together, 

Bringing home the cows/ ” 

During the cold winter months the dozen hens oc- 
cupying a small house in the widow’s backyard suc- 
ceeded in producing but one egg per day between 


MAGGIE 


65 


them all ; and the healthy young Sandy daily ate the 
one egg, which his mother had carefully boiled and 
served in a white china eggcup beside his breakfast 
plate. 

One morning — a bitterly cold morning — the 
mother came shivering in from the kitchen with the 
eggcup containing the egg in her hand, and placed it 
before her son, who had just come downstairs and 
seated himself at the table. Something seemed to 
strike him suddenly that morning ; he glanced quickly 
at her as she seated herself in front of her empty 
plate, and shoving the egg toward her, he said, 
“ Here, mother, keep the egg yourself.” 

“ Tut, tut, laddie ! ” she replied almost indignantly, 
“ you need it a heap worse than I do. I’m done my 
growin’,” and she shoved it back. 

The remembrance of these words and this act of 
his mother’s came up to console him whenever he 
resisted again the prompting to give the egg to her. 

Years and years after he woke from many a 
troubled dream murmuring to himself , 66 Here, mother, 
keep the egg yourself.” 

“I’ve no objection to economies for a purpose,” 
said Mrs. McTavish, who often had occasion to run 
into the Widow McBain’s house at meal time, to bor- 
row “ a pinch o’ tea,” or “a few grains o’ pepper,” 


66 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


and could not prevent her sharp eyes taking in every- 
thing — a phrenologist who had at one time visited 
the village said that her bump of observation was 
unusually high — “ an 5 I’m not denyin’ I’ve practised 
it mysel’ at times ; but I dinna believe in the mother 
puttin’ sugar in th’ boy’s drink an’ keepin’ it out 
o’ her own, nor of givin’ him th’ bit butter, an’ her- 
sel’ eatin’ th’ dry crust. An’ that healthy young lad 
eatin’ th’ on’y egg every day is fair rediculous! 
The boy’ll know nothin’ about self-denial.” 

But when she ventured to hint this to the boy’s 
mother, the latter resented it. 


VI 


THE WOMAN AND THE HOE 

W HERE there is a will a way always 
seems to open up, though often rough 
and thorny, and by the time the school 
at home had Sandy ready for more advanced studies 
his mother had saved the money to send him where 
he could prosecute them. 

“ For Pm never goin’ to be satisfied with seem* 
Sandy short o’ a university man,” she had said confi- 
dentially to Mrs. McTavish ; “ I can endure anything, 
Agnes, if I can live to see the inscription B. A. on 
a bit sheepskin, an’ know all the while that it’s my 
boy, my own son Sandy.” 

66 She’s terrible set up on that boy o’ hers,” said 
Mrs. McTavish afterward to some of the neighbours, 
“ an’ it’s not to be wondered at — he’s a likely lookin’ 
lad, with the pure pale face of youth — good an’ 
simple.” 

Only the women in the village knew of the old 
gowns and patched shoes, the dyed shawls and made- 
67 


68 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


over bonnets, that went to make up the history of that 
saved money. Only Mrs. McTavish knew how often 
the front room carpet had been darned and turned, 
and the places for the furniture changed to cover 
the threadbare spots. Only the mother herself knew 
of the long rows of vegetables in the garden behind 
the house, shut in from the gaze of the neighbours 
by a high board fence, where she hoed and weeded 
every summer morning, long before Sandy was up. 
Somehow she loved to hug the secret to her heart 
and not tell even Mrs. McTavish what pretty air 
castles she was building while out there among the 
growing things. With what a calculating eye she 
studied the commercial value of each variety of veg- 
etable ; with what thrills of delight she noticed their 
increase in size. 

One June morning at the first hint of dawn she 
emerged from the back kitchen door, hoe in hand, 
and walked down among the rows of vegetables. A 
soft haze was shrouding the landscape, like a veil 
of tender violet, and out of the mystery there floated 
occasionally the note of “ a bird that early rose to 
feed her little ones.” The apple trees crowned with 
blossoms looked in the dim light like white-vestured 
angels hovering over the earth, pouring out a bene- 
diction of fragrance on every sentient thing. She 


THE WOMAN AND THE HOE 69 


stood a while straight and slim, her dark calico wrap- 
per draping her figure in long unbroken lines, and 
one of Sandy’s old straw hats protecting her head. 
The dawn crept nearer, but she never even lifted her 
eyes to the glory in the eastern heavens, so intent 
was she on the small vegetable world at her feet. She 
could see each variety now quite distinctly, and a 
flush had crept up under the high cheek bones of her 
Scotch face. 

“ Those parsnips,” she soliloquised, “ will get the 
laddie a pair o’ boots, maybe enough for a pair o’ 
carpet slippers — with heels on them.” She stooped 
down and touched lovingly the feathery leaves of 
the young carrots, and said, “ These’ll get the socks, 
an’ cotton, an’ thread for shirts which I’ll make my- 
self. The tomatoes,” she added, rising from her 
stooping position and looking with a satisfied air 
at the glossy “ love-apples,” an early variety just 
beginning to blush with a consciousness of maturity, 
“ will buy the lad a new felt dicky for the fall, with 
a pair o’ warm gloves, suspenders, neckties, an’ col- 
lars, an’ things a gentleman can’t do without, an’ 
my Sandy must be a gentleman. The beets an’ onions 
an’ celery, that nice white celery, will go a way 
toward a suit o’ clothes. Then I’ll have the thimble- 
berries to sell, an’ I can spare a few baskets off that 


70 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


peach tree. Sandy won’t be home this winter, an’ 
I won’t want dainties to eat.” 

A song sparrow, perched on a gnarled limb of 
a plum tree right over her head, at that moment 
warbled his morning song of praise, and the Widow, 
who in her exultation felt that the very birds were 
rejoicing with her, looked up and said: 

“ Ay, birdie, it’s grand work, isn’t it, makin’ 
money to give our Sandy schoolin’? ” 

Then, as if to show her sympathy with the bird 
interests, she sang blithely from the metrical version 
of the eighty-fourth psalm: 


“ ‘ Behold the sparrow findeth 
A house in which to rest. 

The swallow hath discovered 
Where she may build her nest; 
And where securely sheltered, 
Her young she forth may bring 
So, Lord of Hosts, thy altars 
I seek, my God, my King. 1 ” 


The human song seemed to arouse a spirit of emu- 
lation among the feathered songsters in the surround- 
ing trees, for they immediately burst into a perfect 
concert of bird music. In the medley the trained 
ear of the country woman distinguished the cat- 


THE WOMAN AND THE HOE 71 


bird’s message, the robin’s earnest note, and the flute 
of the oriole. 

“ Dear, dear ! ” she exclaimed, looking around her 
apprehensively, “ such a clatter ! we’ll rouse all the 
village with our joyful noise, an’ they’ll be peeping 
out o’ their bedroom windows with their nightcaps 
on their heads to see what’s the matter; we don’t 
want the secret of our garden in everybody’s mouth.” 

Her heart felt very tender that morning; she hoed 
carefully for fear she might cut some of the earth 
worms that were wriggling their way through the 
soft clay. She stopped working once to extricate 
a great bumblebee, that in his clumsy flight had 
entangled himself in a spider’s web. A small, green 
garter snake, with glittering, frightened eyes, glided 
silently past her ; the Widow had always taken a sort 
of savage pleasure in killing a snake, but this morn- 
ing she looked at it and murmured softly, 66 Poor 
thing, nothing loves it ; I’ll let it pass.” 

The joyous spirit of the bird-songs seemed to have 
taken possession of even her physical powers; she 
hoed without weariness until a neighbour’s clock sent 
six hard, fast strokes reverberating on the still morn- 
ing air. A rooster in a neighbouring yard crowed 
lustily, and was answered by five or six other roosters, 
Mrs. McShane’s pig began squealing for his morn- 


72 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


ing pail of swill, the shoemaker, who lived a few 
doors away, called loudly for his apprentice to “ get 
up,” and the Widow thought it time for her to go 
in and get breakfast. 

Alexander’s class at school was at this time study- 
ing as literature portions of Shakespeare ; the quaint 
sayings of the seer had somehow caught his fancy, 
and, having a good memory, he was practising ap- 
plying the quotations on appropriate occasions. 
He, too, had heard the roosters crow, and, stirring 
uneasily on his pillow, murmured: 

‘“The early village cock 

Has twice done salutation to the morn.’ ” 

“ But I’m not turning out yet,” he added, dou- 
bling up his pillow to make his head lie more easy. 
“ Mother won’t have the breakfast for half an hour, 
anyway.” 

About the same time that the Widow, hoe in hand, 
had gone out to her garden, the Village Saint, car- 
rying his heavy walking-stick, stepped out through 
his front door. It was his practice to take an early 
morning walk, partly for his health’s sake, and partly 
to enjoy the beauties of nature, which he affirmed 
never looked so well at any other time as in the early 
morning. He was followed by his dog, the poor, 


THE WOMAN AND THE HOE 73 


lost, yellow-haired mongrel which pity had induced 
him to take in and feed. Kindness and good-feeding 
for some years had changed the very character of 
the animal; the hunted, cringing, thieving look had 
left his amber eyes, and peace, confidence, and trust- 
worthiness looked unflinchingly from them. 

The old man walked on, sometimes talking to him- 
self, sometimes talking to the dog. The beauties of 
nature never seemed to pall on him. 

“ Thy mercies are renewed every morning,” he 
mused, as he smelled the sweet scents of the trees, 
or looked out over the flower-carpeted earth. The 
hilarity of the birds at this early morning hour 
seemed to enter his spirit, and he walked faster. 
The snickering of the squirrels, the drone of the 
bees, the psean of the whole insect chorus seemed to 
harmonise with a music in his own soul. He walked 
on and on, until he had reached the place where no 
buildings obstructed his vision; the tops of the low 
hills were visible through the soft, purple mist of 
morning, which still fringed the horizon. Strange, 
sweet calls came from birds unknown to him, birds 
which had apparently spent the night in an adjacent 
tree-filled ravine. It seemed to his pure old heart 
that they were calls to something higher and better 
than he had yet experienced. He raised his hat to 


74 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


the majesty of a great oak tree that stood in his 
pathway. Some farmer’s sheep which were quietly 
grazing near the fence in an adjoining field stopped 
nibbling their grass and raised their innocent faces 
to look at him. Walking past the sheep pasture 
the old man reached a field where the bearded heads 
of “ fall wheat,” swayed by the morning zephyrs, 
were softly caressing each other. Although a reti- 
cent man when in company, he talked a good deal 
when alone, and, as he threaded his way along the 
pathway that skirted the highway, carefully avoid- 
ing putting his foot on a little flower, even a dande- 
lion, he was saying softly: 

“ Thou makest the outgoings of the morning and the evening 
to rejoice. Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness; and Thy 
paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wil- 
derness: and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures 
are clothed with flocks; the valleys are also clothed with corn; 
they shout for joy, they also sing.” 

His dog looked inquiringly up into his face, gave 
a short, muffled bark of approval, as if he were as- 
senting to what his master had said. 

When the old man had retraced his steps and was 
nearing home again he passed in front of the Widow 
McBain’s cottage. The Widow, before going in 
to prepare breakfast, had walked around to the front 


THE WOMAN AND THE HOE 75 


of the house to secure a hen, which had just broken 
the tether that had bound her to a stake in the 
backyard, and was wandering away with her brood 
of young chickens. The old man exchanged greet- 
ings with the Widow, remarked on the beauty of the 
morning, and passed on, thinking that some of the 
morning’s beauty had somehow crept into his neigh- 
bour’s face. The Widow, while she placed the tether 
again around the leg of the wandering hen, and 
tenderly gathered the downy chicks around her, said 
to herself : 

“ That dear old Saint does not carry a care in his 
countenance.” 

Having accomplished her task, the Widow came 
into the house and prepared to start the kitchen 
fire. Having placed in the pine kindlings she had 
shaved the night before, she put hardwood on top of 
it, spilled from a cup over all a little coal oil, and 
applied a match. 

She recollected, as she saw the flames creeping up 
among the pine shavings, that Mrs. McTavish, com- 
ing in one morning early to borrow a “ pinch o’ 
soda ” to raise her buckwheat cakes, had caught her 
making the kitchen fire, and had cried indignantly, 
“ ’Deed an’ it’s Sandy ought to be at that work ! ” 
And she had replied, just as indignantly, “ Sandy! 


76 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


Why, the poor lad needs his rest morns.” She was of 
the same opinion still, and she wished Agnes Mc- 
Tavish “ would not be so ready with her tongue.” 

“ Sandy likes his bit o’ bacon morns,” she mused, 
when she saw the blaze catch the wood. 

She proceeded to sharpen a knife by whetting it 
back and forth on an edge of the kitchen stove. That 
accomplished, she walked to the small smokehouse 
in the backyard, took down a side of bacon hanging 
by a twine string, and shaved off some slices. She 
put the slices on a hot pan and sprinkled a little sugar 
over them, saying to herself, “ Sandy likes his bacon 
sweet.” She stood over the stove turning the meat 
with a fork until it was frizzled to a crisp. Then 
she doubled the tablecloth and spread it over half the 
table; what was the use of setting the whole table 
for only two? And it was nice for them to sit 
down so close together, Sandy liked it so. 

“ Sandy, son, it’s time to rise ! ” she called up the 
short flight of stairs. 

In response to a third call, which the Widow gave 
at intervals while completing her preparations for 
breakfast, Sandy, looking as fresh as a new-blown 
rose, came downstairs. He was a likely looking 
boy in every respect at this period of his life; his 
mouth was clean and fresh as if only pure things 


THE WOMAN AND THE HOE 77 


came from it; his teeth were white, regular, and 
glistening, his eyes frank and true. His mother 
seated herself at the head of the table, while he sat 
down at the side. 

While the boy surveyed the breakfast, wishing 
that his mother had added eggs to the bacon, the 
mother placed her hand to her face and said grace 
into the palm of it. 

As soon as that was over Sandy cried, “ Mother, 
have you good, strong tea this morning? I like 
mine strong, strong .” 

66 Yes, son, I’ve put in an extra spoon just for 
you.’ 5 

“ He’s as fond of his good cup o’ tea as any old 
woman,” said his mother with undisguised pride one 
day to her neighbour, Mrs. McTavish. 

66 1 don’t know as I’m likin’ that, J essie,” thought- 
fully returned the neighbour, “ in one sa young — 
a kind o’ cravin’ for stimulant. I wouldn’t en- 
courage it.” 

“ Agnes is a kind o’ croaker,” the Widow af- 
terward said to herself ; “ tea’ll never hurt the 
boy.” 

After breakfast, while his mother washed the 
dishes, swept and tidied the kitchen, and scraped and 
pared vegetables for the dinner, Sandy went out to the 


78 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

barn to play with his rabbits and his Scotch collie 
pup — it was Saturday and there was no school. 

He stroked the former, let them slide softly 
through his hands, folded up their pink-lined, satin 
ears into many grotesque shapes; but the rabbits 
were too unresponsive to long satisfy the boy and 
he soon forsook them for the more demonstrative 
dog. 

Trusty was a Scotch shepherd’s collie only a few 
months old, but such was the attention that had 
been given him he was a very precocious pup. Nar- 
row-faced, long-muzzled, keen-eyed, he sat watching 
every motion of his young master with an almost 
human intelligence. 

“ Now, Trusty, make believe you’re dead,” shouted 
the latter. “ Dead dog ! Dead dog ! ” Trusty 
dropped limply to the ground. Then he was made 
to stand on his hind legs with a cap on his head, and 
“ Speak.” “ Speak now, Trusty ! Speak ! Speak, 
boy! ” Trusty followed each command with a short, 
sharp bark. 

When Sandy became tired of the dog, he stood on 
his head, made cartwheels with his arms and legs, 
walked the top rail of the fence, climbed a tree and 
swung from one of the limbs by his arms first, and 
then by his legs. He bounded a ball, and flipped mar- 


THE WOMAN AND THE HOE 79 


bles, and, although he felt a little too old for the 
sport, he played being a race horse, kicking and 
rearing in a manner that would do justice to the most 
fractious brute. He was a train of cars and shunted 
and switched with much whistle-blowing all over the 
backyard. 

He no longer in his play-hours enjoyed the com- 
pany of Bill Gilooly, for as soon as the latter was 
able to do any manual work his father had obliged 
him to spend every day he was out of school in the 
blacksmith shop. 

“ Ye ought to bring up that boy o’ yours to help 
you a bit with your work,” said Mrs. McTavish to 
the Widow ; “ he could be taught to wash dishes an’ 
pare potatoes as well as yersel’.” 

“ Oh, no,” said his mother, “ I’ve other things 
in my mind for Sandy, other things entirely. 
Sandy pare potatoes? — he’s too proud-spirited for 
that. ... I never like to see a man potterin’ 
’round a kitchen,” she added in a lower tone. 

“ Well, when his women folk hae to potter ’round,” 
returned the officious neighbour stubbornly, “ I don’t 
see why he should be too fine to help ’em.” 

Most of the women in the village did not approve 
of the Widow’s acts of self-denial in behalf of her 
son, and were not slow to say so — behind her back. 


80 


ALEXANDER McEAIN, B. A. 


“ But,” said Mrs. McTavish, who felt in duty 
bound to defend her friend and neighbour when 
criticised by other women, “ we’ll all be proud o’ him 
by an’ by; he’ll be leamin’ Greek an’ Latin, an’ ’ll 
be a real uplift to th’ village when he comes back 
laden wi’ his degrees an’ honours. It’s no’ every vil- 
lage can boast a Bachelor o’ Arts. We may be 
honest here, but we’re all kin’ o’ commonplace; I 
mean we have no celebrities — nothin’ to make us 
spoken of in th’ neighbourin’ villages.” 

“ Ye forget One-Armed Joe kin beat ’em all at the 
checkers; an’ I hear tell all the villages ’round are 
real jealous o’ it,” cried one of her hearers. 

“ Ah,” returned Mrs. McTavish, “ checkers are 
nowhere beside Latin an’ Greek.” 


VII 


THE RING CROWNED WITH TWO HEARTS 

I T was a good deal of a wrench for Alexander 
to tear himself away from the village, the easy 
homelife, and Maggie — the company of the 
latter had grown more indispensable to him every day. 
He seemed inclined to settle down to some occupation 
in the village, where he should always have Maggie by 
his side — for in his secret heart he had decided that 
she must stand by him all through life — some occu- 
pation that would not require so much self-denial and 
exertion as a course of study demanded. Indeed, it 
is very doubtful that he would ever have had the 
courage and fortitude to go on only that his mother 
and Maggie would listen to nothing else. 

Before he left home he made Maggie promise, al- 
though neither of them fully understood the mean- 
ing of it, that she would never walk with any other 
lad in the village. When they had been children 
going together to the infant class he gave her a 
blue bead ring, which she wore until the thread broke 
and the beads were lost. Before he went away he 


81 


82 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


put on her finger a ring he had bought at the village 
general store; its material was doubtful, but it was 
crowned with two hearts. 

The morning that he went away his mother, Mag- 
gie, and Mrs. McTavish accompanied him to the 
railway station, the young people walking briskly 
in advance, the older couple following at a more 
leisurely pace. 

“ I’m that proud o’ my boy, that proud, Agnes,” 
said the Widow to her neighbour, allowing her glow- 
ing eyes to follow the not ungraceful figure of her 
son, “ that I fancy I must feel something like a goose 
that has hatched out a swan.” 

“ Aye, aye,” returned the neighbour, who could 
rejoice with those who do rejoice, as well as weep 
with those who weep. 

“ My, I feel now that all my trial days are past,” 
she added, “ an’ th’ rest o’ th’ way will be sunshine.” 

“ That’s wi’ th’ Lord on’y to know,” said the neigh- 
bour piously, “ but ye’ve every promise o’ it, Jessie.” 

“ What a terrible affliction it must be for a mother 
to have a boy a ne’er-do-well, like Bill Gilooly, 
for example. Or turn out in the end a good-for- 
nothing man like One-Armed Joe — good for nothing 
but playing checkers. I have no fears of anything 
like that , Agnes.” 


RING CROWNED WITH HEARTS 83 


“ No fears,” returned the neighbour. 

Later that same morning Mrs. McTavish ran into 
the Widow’s little summer kitchen and found the 
tears of the latter dropping into the pan while she 
was washing the breakfast dishes, which had been 
shoved aside to allow her to accompany Alexander 
to the station. 

66 Why, why ! ” cried the sympathetic neighbour. 

“ Oh, Agnes,” said the Widow, drying her eyes 
on the corner of her apron, “ my boy has gone out 
into the great world to-day to make either a good 
or a bad man.” 

“ Why, why,” repeated the neighbour, “ I never 
thought you had any doubts that Sandy would be 
always among th’ gude.” 

“ Ah,” sighed the Widow, “ I’m just remembering 
that the Apostle John says that the whole world lies 
in the arms of the Wicked One; where is theie a 
chance for my lad out in it? 

“ But I’m thinking,” continued the Widow, after 
a short silence, 66 that it cannot be the lads that have 
a mother that go astray. Ah, surely not. A mother 
with her arms around a boy can surely keep him from 
the arms of the Wicked One.” 

“ Aye, aye, surely,” returned the neighbour com- 
fortingly. Then, as if her conscience had given her 


84 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


a twinge, she added hesitatingly, 44 I’m thinkin’, after 
all, that it’s on’y th’ Lord A’mighty kin do that, 
Jessie.” 

44 Oh, no, that’s th’ work o’ a boy’s mother,” re- 
turned the Widow almost impatiently. 44 I’ll have 
him unite with the church, of course, after he’s 
through his college; he doesn’t seem inclined to do 
so now, but he’ll know more after he has got his 
degree,” added the mother. 

44 Ah, she’s set her heart on havin’ him a profes- 
sional man; I know Jessie’s pride,” said Mrs. Mc- 
Tavish, as she was walking away from the Widow’s 
house. 44 It would never do for him to be a miller, 
as his father an’ grandfather were before him; he 
must be a lawyer, or doctor, or some one o’ these 
here white-handed, an’ often black-hearted, profes- 
sions; so she must send him off ta th’ university, if 
it breaks her heart. I’m hopin’ th’ lad’ll have ballast 
enough in th’ hold to stand havin’ his sails in- 
flated. Aye, I’m hopin’, I’m hopin’. I’m thinkin’ 
Sandy’d ’a’ been safer a miller — freer frae tempta- 
tion. . . . What would become o’ all th’ world 

without th’ quiet unassumin’ bodies that fill th’ com- 
monplace positions ? ” she added after a short re- 
flection on the temptations of the world. 44 Dear, 
dear, how far would we go without our bakers, an’ 


RING CROWNED WITH HEARTS 85 


/ 

blacksmiths, an 5 shoemakers, an’ tinkers, an’ tailors? 
There’s our Village Saint a shoemaker; pit a half- 
sole on ma shoe that’s made it do th’ work o’ two 
shoes; an’ I had the extra money ta send th’ Gospel 
ta’ th’ heathen, if I had a mind ta send it. But I’m 
thinkin’ th’ Lord must hae meant him for a preacher. 
So much grace as has been given him has been thrown 
away surely on a shoemaker.” 

By this time Mrs. McTavish found herself in front 
of the shoemaker’s window, and, glancing in, she 
caught a glimpse of his white, glowing face bending 
over his last. 

“ There he is, just look at him, will ye,” she ex- 
claimed softly, “wi’ that look intil his face that is 
a rebuke ta sin, if he never said a word. I’m sure 
if th’ Lord ever intended any man ta preach til his 
fellow-man he intended that one, an’ I’m goin’ in to 
tell him so.” 

Suiting the action to the thought, she opened the 
shoemaker’s door and walked in. 

The old man on the bench smiled a greeting, and 
Mrs. McTavish began bluntly, “ I jist came in ta 
tell ye that I b’lieve ye’ve missed yer callin’ ; I don’t 
know why some of us have not told ye that long ago ; 
if ever th’ Lord intended ony man ta get up in a 
pulpit an’ preach th’ Gospel til ither men, he in- 


86 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


tended you . He never wasted a’ that grace on a 
body simply ta sew on shoe-leather. Don’t ye agree 
wi’ me? ” 

For reply the old man laid aside his last, rose from 
his seat, and, going to a small cupboard in the corner 
of the shop, he took out of it a volume which looked 
like a home-made book. Its cover was made of brown 
paper, and on its back was printed in ink the word 
“ Sermons.” It evidently was a book the old man 
had compiled himself, gathering through the years 
the sermons that he fondly thought were intended for 
him, he had preserved them in this fashion. Again 
seating himself, he opened the book at a place that 
seemed as if much usage had made it open easily 
and began to read : 

“ I believe that God to-day, while He has need of 
baptised ministers of Jesus Christ, has more need 
of baptised blacksmiths, and manufacturers, and 
merchants ; and I believe that the blacksmith ought 
just as truly be baptised with the Holy Ghost for his 
work as any man who preaches the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ. Over in Exodus we are told that before a 
tailor could make a coat for Aaron he had to be 
filled with the Spirit of God. Before men could 
do the delicate work on the tabernacle, they needed 
not to go to some place of fine training in the schools 


RING CROWNED WITH HEARTS 87 


of men, but they needed to be men that were filled 
with the Holy Ghost. What a word that is about 
Bezeall over there in Exodus! God said, 6 Now go 
and search me out a man that is filled with the Spirit 
of God’; and they found Bezeall and Aholiab, and 
God filled them up with His Holy Spirit that they 
might be jewellers — that they might fashion gold and 
silver and carve the woodwork of the tabernacle. I 
believe that God wants men to be filled with the Holy 
Ghost in connection with their daily life just as 
as truly as Peter was filled on the day of Pentecost. 
God said that before Joshua could be a governor he 
must be filled with the Spirit of God. He said that 
because Othmiel was filled with the Spirit of God 
He would make him a judge. He said unto Gideon it 
should mean martial valour, and he made him a 
general. He said that David could not sing until he 
was filled with the Holy Ghost. Away in the West 
there was a man who used to make and sell violins 
and sell them for three or four dollars apiece; but 
about seventeen years ago there came to him the 
thought that whatever he did ought to be done for 
the glory of God, and he would not touch the 
violin he was making in his workshop except when 
he knew that he was working by the Spirit of 
God. The result was that while his other violins 


88 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

were worth three or four dollars, he sold this 
violin for between three hundred and four hun- 
dred dollars. You might think he would have 
learned the lesson, but he did not, and he kept on 
making three-dollar and four-dollar violins for ten 
years. Then there came to him the impulse to pray 
and work by the Spirit of God on one instrument, 
and he made that and sold it for nearly four hundred 
dollars. You would think he had learned his lesson 
then, but he had not, and he kept on three or four 
years more making cheap violins, until the thought 
at last came to him, ‘ What I did as a spasmodic 
thing I ought to do all the time, 5 and he gave the 
making of violins over to the Holy Ghost, and now 
he never sells an instrument for less than three hun- 
dred dollars. 55 

“ A violin, 55 said Mrs. McTavish reflectively, when 
the old man had closed his book, “ that instrument 
wi 5 its contrite pleadin 5 voice, that will reach yer 
heart if ye hae a heart; I haven’t a doubt that a 
violin so made would bring somebody intil th 5 
Kingdom. 55 

The old man resumed his work on the leather, 
and Mrs. McTavish remained silent for some sec- 
onds. 


“ Well, well, 55 she said at last, “ it’s wonderful to 


RING CROWNED WITH HEARTS 89 

think on, that a’ our wee common doin’s are sa im- 
portant. . . . It’s time now for me ta be hastin’ 

home ta get ma man’s dinner,” she added, rising from 
the seat she had taken. “ We must come down frae 
our highest mounts of reflection to attend til th’ 
wants of these poor mortal bodies. 

“ I’m sure,” she said to herself, as she was walking 
home, “ if anyone above another needs to feel that 
th’ Lord has called her til th’ work, an’ is willin’ by 
that reason to fill it wi’ a kind o’ glory, it’s th’ wum- 
man who potters over a cookstove, an’ washes dishes 
three hundred and sixty-five days in th’ year, hand 
runnin’ ! ” 

It was after Alexander had gone that Maggie 
wrote in her diary, glancing frequently at the bright 
new ring while she was doing so — Maggie was fond 
of pretty things — “ Sandy gave me a ring to take 
the place of the old bead ring he gave me when we 
were children, he said. How funny that he should 
remember that old blue bead ring! I had forgotten 
it. Two hearts,” looking at it again ; “ of course 
this is because we have always been friends since the 
first day he came to school. I suppose two hearts 
stand for two warm friends, and, of course, we shall 
always remain warm friends until we grow old. 
Strange to think that everybody has to grow old, 


90 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


I wonder whether we — Sandy and I — shall grow 
nicer and stronger as we grow older; I am afraid 
some people do not. Some seem to grow worse, all 
their bad habits and cranky ways more fixed. I want 
to grow old in the right way. Granny Neilson has 
grown old in the right way; the Village Saint has 
grown old in the right way . 55 

Here Maggie began to turn back the leaves of her 
diary until she reached the first page, where she 
read, “ Sandy goes to school with me every day 
now. I like him terrible well. When we are big 
I guess we will get married, we like each other so 
well . 55 A faint pink colour dyed her forehead, chin, 
and all other parts of her face that were white at 
other times. “ How silly children are , 55 she said, 
drawing her pen throught the written words. “ I 
ought to have learned how to write before I attempted 
to keep a diary, and Fd have known by that time not 
to have written anything so foolish . 55 

She laid her pen down on the table and meditated 
a few moments, resting her chin in her hands. “ I 
shall probably never be married , 55 she said at last. 
“ I don’t need any person to take care of me, and 
I can take care of Sandy without marrying him. 
I want to do something in the world — something 
great” 


RING CROWNED WITH HEARTS 91 


Then she picked up her pen again and wrote : “ I 
wonder why Sandy made me promise not to walk 
with any other boy in the village while he was away? 
What has he got against them? Boys are hard to 
understand. I gave him the promise just to humour 
him.” 

Maggie was of Scotch extraction, Highland on her 
mother’s side, and at the time Sandy McBain left 
the village she carried herself with the air of a queen. 
Her brown curls were now gathered into a cluster 
over her shoulders by a scarlet ribbon, and her bright 
frocks — Maggie inherited her mother’s love of bright 
colours, and when she had reached skirts of ankle 
length she still continued to wear her gay frocks — 
were worn with a grace and indifference with which 
a bird of Paradise might wear its plumage. Her free 
step (an artist who at one time visited the village 
said that Maggie stepped like a Diana), the grace- 
ful swing of her arm, and a certain depth in her dark 
eyes would give an observer the impression that she 
would flinch at nothing she thought she ought to do. 
Mrs. McTavish said that she never watched Maggie 
walking down the village street without thinking of 
the “ Scottish Maiden Martyr.” 

“ From some ancestor,” said that astute lady, “ she 
has inherited the grit an’ fortitude which I verily be- 


92 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


lieve would carry her til th’ stake before she would 
recant or show th’ white feather.” 

It was on the afternoon of the same day that 
Alexander had left the village that Maggie’s mother 
sent her on an errand to the general store. She was 
but a few yards from home when Bill Gilooly came 
hurrying up behind her. 

Bill at this period of his life shod horses, or helped 
his father to do so, for bread, and performed on the 
jew’s-harp and played checkers for recreation. On 
rainy days, when there was no business in the black- 
smith’s shop, if you could not find Bill with his jew’s- 
harp in Joe Pepper’s barroom, you were sure to find 
him in the back of J ohnnie Looney’s tailor shop play- 
ing checkers with One-Armed Joe. 

44 Hello, Maggie,” cried Bill as soon as he was 
within hailing distance of her, 44 I saw yer red frock 
an’ came near breakin’ me neck tryin’ to ketch up 
wid ye. It’s a long time since you an’ me has had 
a bit av a visit. P’raps ye’ll look at a feller now 
onct in awhile when Sandy’s gone.” 

Maggie immediately stopped and said, 44 1 can’t 
walk with you, Bill.” 

44 How’s that,” said Bill, with a winning cadence 
in his voice, 44 have ye sprained yer ankle, Maggie? ” 

Bill had a red face, and was freckled like a turkey- 


RING CROWNED WITH HEARTS 93 


egg. To be sure, the phrenologist who had visited 
the village, and whom Bill, for the edification and 
amusement of the others, had allowed to “ bump ” 
his head free of charge, had said that the red face 
and freckles indicated “ a fine, sanguine tempera- 
ment, which will moderate as he grows older.” The 
audience were left in some doubt as to which would 
moderate, the redness and freckles, or the sanguinity. 
His family had not the social caste in the village 
enjoyed by Maggie’s parents; but association in one 
small schoolroom, during childhood days, standing 
side by side in the same classes, whispering answers 
to questions into each other’s ears, has a very level- 
ling tendency. Very often Bill had helped Maggie 
with her “ sums,” and many a time Maggie had 
prompted Bill in the spelling class. Then Bill was 
“funny”; who can resist fun? and he was seldom 
repulsed by the girls. 

“ No,” said Maggie in answer to his question, 
obliged to smile in spite of her determination not to 
yield to his request; “ but I can’t ” 

“ Don’t ye like to walk with me, Maggie? ” replied 
Bill solicitously, looking into her face out of the 
corner of the eye that was next her. 

“ I’ve nothing agen ye, Bill,” said Maggie, turn- 
ing around to face him, and leaning her back against 


94 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

the board fence, which ran parallel with the sidewalk 
at that point; “ but I promised” 

Maggie did not always say “ ye ” for “ you,” and 
“ agen ” for “ against,” but somehow she felt that it 
would not be altogether polite not to speak something 
like Bill. 

“ Och, ye promised, ye did ; promised yer ma that 
ye’d never be seen walkin’ the street with that gos- 
soon of a Bill Gilooly , eh ? ” said Bill. 

“ No,” said Maggie, “ I didn’t promise her” 

“ Oh,” returned Bill, a new intelligence flashing 
into his eyes, “ ye promised Sandy McBain. Do you 
mind, Maggie, when I give him a lickin’ ’cause you 
let him bite out o’ your apple — ’twas a big red North- 
ern Spy — when we were all youngsters together? 
Somehow it made me mad to see you in your red 
frock — that was prettier than other girls’ frocks — 
an’ yer brown curls, favourin’ him mor’n the rest 
o’ us. Sandy an’ me has been good ’nough friends 
sence, but I’d give him another lickin’ now ef I had 
him here, for that promise.” 

In reply to this Maggie leaned more solidly back 
against the board fence. 

She was thoroughly unconscious of what a pretty 
picture she made in her bright frock, with the old, 
grey fence for a background; but Bill in his blue 


RING CROWNED WITH HEARTS 95 


jeans, with his hands almost perpetually black from 
horseshoeing, was not devoid of an artistic sense. 
He enjoyed looking at Maggie, and still more talking 
with her, and he quickly came to the decision that for 
half an hour at least both pleasures should be his. 
So he replied good-humouredly, and with that in- 
expressible Irish cadence which is well-nigh irre- 
sistible. 

“Ye promised not to walk with Bill Gilooly, but 
there was nothin’ said agen yer standin’ an’ havin’ a 
chat with him.” 

With this he planted himself in front of Maggie, 
and entertained and amused her for nearly half an 
hour ; obliging the conscientious girl to listen to him, 
for if she attempted to continue her walk he would 
walk with her. 

Maggie scolded, laughed, and expostulated in 
turn, but all to no avail, until a farmer drove along 
the quiet street. Then Bill said, “ There’s Jake 
Bender with his sorrel to git shod; the boss’ll be 
lookin’ for me.” And he moved off in the direction 
taken by the man and horse, muttering disconsolately 
as he went: 

“ She’ll cotton to no one but Sandy.” 

Bill felt so disconsolate that he decided, when he 
saw that Jake Bender was not going to the black- 


96 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


smith’s with his horse, to retrace his steps to the 
Mapleton House and get “ a little somethin’ to cheer 
him up.” 

When in the vicinity of the said house he met One- 
Armed Joe. 


VIII 


A SUCCESS AT CHECKERS 


O 


NE- ARMED JOE was a well-known vil- 
lage character. He was an adventurer in 
a limited way, limited because his adven- 


tures never led him outside the county in which he 
was born. But every mile of that county he had 
travelled, with a worn-out old horse and a second- 
hand, single waggon, in the capacity of tin-pedlar, 
rag-gatherer, patent medicine vender, or some other 
avocation which called for very little capital, brains, 
or work. He was bom on a farm, but weeding, har- 
rowing, and planting potatoes he found too labori- 
ous for him, even when a boy, and as soon as he was 
old enough he left home. 

He was a few years out in the world when one day, 
when his funds were pretty low and he was somewhat 
depressed in spirits, he came into the village and 
met an attractive young woman. He wore a red neck- 
tie that day, and his hat was on the side of his head, 
and the attraction was mutual. Joe, thinking that 
it would be a little break in the monotony of life, and 


97 


08 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


that circumstances could not easily be much worse 
with him than they were, after a week’s acquaintance 
persuaded the attractive young woman to marry 
him. He borrowed a coat and necktie for the occa- 
sion, and money to get the license. 

It was in the little front parlour of the small, 
white frame Methodist parsonage that they were 
married, she giving her age as eighteen and he as 
twenty-one. Joe chose the Methodist minister for 
one reason : because he had attended Methodist meet- 
ing in the schoolhouse a few times when he lived in 
the country. Then, for another reason, because away 
in his inner consciousness he had a feeling that min- 
isters of that denomination were more willing than 
some others to work professionally without being 
paid with money ; he had seen them, many and many 
a time, officiating at the burying of non-church-going 
people and ne’er-do-wells. Joe’s marriage was, of 
course, to him, an exciting event, and he forgot en- 
tirely to pay the marriage fee. This was convenient, 
as he had not at the time a cent in his pocket. 

The new wife was Joe’s complement, in so far as 
she was as energetic as he was lethargic, and it gave 
him much comfort to settle down and let her manage 
things. 

They were not married very long when Joe, tour- 


A SUCCESS AT CHECKERS 


99 


ing the surrounding country with a threshing-mill, 
lost his left hand. This furnished him with the ex- 
cuse he had long wanted ; to quit work, to become the 
gentleman of leisure he had long hankered to become ; 
and from that day he assumed an invalid air and a 
collar, and spent most of his time lounging between 
the blacksmith’s shop, the post office, the village tav- 
ern, and Johnnie Looney’s tailoring establishment. 
Occasionally he made a quarter or two, enough to 
keep himself in tobacco, repairing a clock that had 
not much wrong with it, or selling a cheap print 
of the Queen, the Pope, or some other world celebrity ; 
but the work of providing for the home naturally 
fell on the energetic little wife. 

He liked his glass, too, and generally managed to 
be around when there was a prospect of treats. He 
did not very often get actually drunk, he could sel- 
dom get enough whisky to put him into that condi- 
tion, but he drank every time he got a chance. The 
village naturally fell into the habit of calling him 
One-Armed Joe (he had really lost only a hand, but 
it was easier to say One-Armed J oe than One-Handed 
Joe) to distinguish him from various Joes who were 
in possession of both their hands. 

From his habit of trying to talk and at the same 
time hold a clay pipe in his mouth — he had begun 

lofc. 


100 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

to hold a clay pipe in his mouth when he was sixteen 
— diagonal wrinkles had worn down each cheek from 
his eye to the comer of his mouth; and from over- 
smoking or want of nourishment, his skin was as dry 
as parchment, and, as to colour, a cross between an 
olive-green and an orange. 

But One-Armed Joe was the crack checker-player 
of the county. The flight of the imagination is 
without limit, and despite humbleness of position, 
poor clothes, and scant food, Joe at times rode upon 
the high places of the earth, and was fed with the 
heritage of kings. He felt that he ranked with the 
champions of the world, and this feeling gave him a 
certain elation of spirit which no curtain lectures 
from the wife of his bosom, nor rebuffs from a 
cruel, unsympathetic world, could quench. It was a 
matter for speculation, sometimes indulged in by some 
of the inhabitants of the village, what might have 
been made out of Joe if some master-finger had 
caused the entire diapason of his soul to vibrate. 

Almost any hour of the day if you were to peer 
into the dim recesses of Johnnie Looney’s tailor shop 
you would see One-Armed Joe, with a comrade seated 
opposite to him, bending over the checker-board, his 
white clay pipe crowded to the corner of his mouth, 
the wrinkles deeply set in his cheeks, and a scowl 


A SUCCESS AT CHECKERS 


101 


down between his eyes ; while the fingers of his one 
hand, bent like claws, hovered over the all-absorbing 
board. It was told that at one time, so hard-con- 
tested was the game, he and his opponent sat from 
Saturday morning till noon the following Sunday. 
This scandalised the village, and Joe felt it to such 
an extent that it was never repeated. 

The sun rose and set with as much splendour 
over the village home of One-Armed Joe as anywhere 
in the world, but he never saw the glory. If he 
glanced in the direction of the sky at all, the clouds 
seemed to form themselves into checker-boards. Did 
he chance to raise his eyes to the stars, he thought 
they would make capital “ men ” — if they had only 
been two colours — for the checker-board. 

Even the green fields assumed the appearance of 
great checker-boards, and when he looked at a noble 
tree he always calculated how many check-boards 
could be made out of the lumber. He was never 
known to hear a bird but once in his life; then he 
declared it said, “ Checkers ! Checkers ! Checkers ! ” 

The village schoolmaster, who was of a calculating 
turn of mind, reckoned that One-Armed Joe spent 
hours enough over the checker-board to take a uni- 
versity course, or learn the languages several times. 
But Joe thought languages and university courses 


102 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

nowhere beside checkers for interest; indeed, he often 
wondered why more men had not discovered the merits 
of the game as a time-killer. Then it gave him in- 
fluence in the village, and some surrounding villages, 
and he knew that it did. He was quite a hero among 
the “ boys ” and was always invited, if within hear- 
ing distance, to be a partaker in the treats. 

On one occasion one of the village ministers ven- 
tured to remonstrate with Joe about wasting his 
time; he intimated that, as he was deprived of his 
hand and unable to do as much manual labour as 
other men, he had more time for reading and im- 
proving his mind. 

Joe stared at the good man as if he were speaking 
an unknown language, and continued to play 
checkers. 

Because Bill Gilooly was generous in spending his 
wages, Joe, although a good many years Bill’s senior, 
spent much of his time in his company. He even 
generously promised, one day when he was half in- 
toxicated, to bestow his checker player’s mantle on 
Bill (whom he said was next best player to himself) 
in case anything should induce him to leave the 
country — go off to Australia, or British Columbia, 
as he sometimes threatened to do when his wife found 
too much fault. 


IX 


A CRACK IN THE MARBLE 

I T was not until he went away from home 
that Alexander discovered, and I might say 
the rest of us discovered, his inherited taste 
for stimulant. Perhaps he missed the fresh egg 
that never failed his breakfast at home; or the cup 
of coffee, creamed to a delicate chocolate colour; or 
Maggie’s companionship — brave Maggie, who always 
walked the path of rectitude; anyhow, as soon as he 
learned that stimulant was something that he liked, 
stimulant he would have. 

The boy in the beginning only thought of having 
a good time ; all his life he had gotten what he liked ; 
if it was within his reach at all, why not now? Some 
people warned him once or twice that he was running 
into danger, but he laughed them to scorn. Very 
early in his life he had heard temperance cranks 
laughed at and ridiculed in a gentle sort of way in 
his village home. Some of the sarcastic remarks 
were made in a half whisper, as though the speaker 
did not think it well to allow children or the general 
103 


104 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


public to hear his or her opinions. But the boy was 
standing around more than once when he was not 
noticed, or supposed not to be noticing, and he re- 
membered hearing some of the old friends whom he 
most respected express decided disapproval of said 
cranks. 

One time in his boyhood a “ temperance woman 99 
(they were rare at that time) came to one of the 
churches to talk about total abstinence, and very few 
of the villagers would go out to hear her. An aged 
elder said in the boy’s hearing, “ Th’ woman surely 
forgets that St. Paul said women were to keep silence 
in th’ churches.” Sandy was profoundly impressed, 
and young as he was he would have blushed to have 
been seen listening to that “ Temperance fanatic.” 
Then he had heard Peter McKim and some other men 
talk largely about “ Anglo-Saxon liberty,” and the 
“ rights 99 of a man to have a bottle of wine, or a 
glass of beer, if he wanted to have it. He had even 
heard Mrs. McTavish say in an undertone that she 
had “ very little respec’ for a man that couldna take 
his glass an’ let it alone when he had enough.” She 
added that men were temperate not when their drink 
was regulated by law, but when they had acquired 
the power to regulate it for themselves. But Sandy 
did not take in that part of her speech. 


A CRACK IN THE MARBLE 


105 


Then the boy read In the one weekly newspaper 
which came into his home — he was just at the age 
to consider Gospel everything that appeared in print 
— this paragraph : “ Prohibition is wrong in prin- 

ciple and impossible in practise. It is unwise to put 
it on the statute books as inducing contempt for all 
law. The only possible remedy is moral suasion.” 
He wondered vaguely what moral suasion meant, and 
decided that he would know when he grew up, as peo- 
ple had told him about many of his other questions. 

It was a grandmother in the church who remarked 
in the boy’s hearing that “ Christ didna forbid th’ 
use o’ wine, but drank it himsel’ an’ made it th’ 
occasion for a meeracle.” So he grew up with a pro- 
found contempt for the individual who was afraid of 
a glass of whisky. 

He sipped and tasted on many little occasions ; it 
was his way of curing every ill, physical and mental. 
He accepted treats, and looked forward eagerly 
toward receiving them. On one occasion, when with 
the boys and treating was general, he got decidedly 
intoxicated, and a whisper of it came back to the 
village. Almost everybody heard the whisper except 
the boy’s mother. 

“ Well, he came by it honest,” said Mrs. Brady in 
a careful undertone, “ nobody can deny that." 


106 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


“ Ah, I fear,” said Mr. Vickers to his wife, in the 
privacy of the manse sitting-room, when they were 
talking over the depressing rumour, 44 that the boy 
was worm-eaten at his birth.” 

44 Is heredity incurable? ” anxiously exclaimed Mrs. 
Vickers. 

44 Incurable,” returned the minister, 44 except 
through the Power that cast out devils, and healed 
the man that was born blind.” 

44 And everything else must have failed people,” 
said Mrs. Vickers, 46 before they’ll venture on the 
Unseen.” 

44 Chip o’ the old block ! Chip o’ the old block ! ” 
said Peter McKim, shoving his hands down deep into 
his trousers pockets as he walked away from the 
party from whom he had received his information. 
44 Ah, a crack in th’ marble,” said Mrs. McTavish 
to herself when the news reached her. 

But others said it was just a boy’s frolic — a grain 
of wild oats. They hoped it would be a warning to 
him, and not occur again ; and the less said about it 
the better. 

The following Easter, when he was home for his 
vacation, the Village Helper passing through the 
Mapleton House (she was in waiting on the ailing 
wife of the proprietor) saw him standing at the bar 


A CRACK IN THE MARBLE 107 


surrounded by a group of followers, with a glass 
of liquor in his hand. She remembered the whisper 
that had come back to the village, and, although she 
had never posed as an advocate of temperance, she 
stepped inside the barroom (why should she be afraid 
of that boy, if he had been at college? She was pres- 
ent at his birth, and gave him his first dose of medi- 
cine ; for in that day it was not thought that a baby’s 
life was secure until it had taken a certain amount 
of doses), snatched the glass out of his hand, saying, 
“ Here, boy, that ain’t for sech as you,” and threw 
the contents out doors. 

She left as suddenly as she came, and Sandy, out 
of bravado before the “ boys,” drank more than one 
glass, and treated around as long as his money lasted. 

“ That’s you, Sandy,” said One-Armed Joe, slap- 
ping the lad on the shoulder, “ don’t you never let 
no woman boss you. My woman tries it on me some- 
times, but it’s no go.” 

As a consequence of Sandy’s drinking the boys 
had to walk him back and forth in the fresh air for 
an hour before he was sober enough to meet Maggie, 
or go home to his mother. 

This meeting of Maggie was a different thing to 
him, since he had come home this time, to what it 
had been before; somehow he had grown half afraid 


108 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


of her clear, pure eyes, that seemed to look him 
through and through; her smooth, white brow, and 
the lustre and dignity of her aspect seemed sort of 
silent denunciators of everything that was crooked 
or evil. He could not endure for a moment the 
thought of letting her go out of his life, and yet 
this time of his home-coming, her world — where she 
habitually lived in thought and action — seemed an- 
other one from his. He wondered with something 
like a pang how they had happened to get into dif- 
ferent worlds; there was a time when they had loved 
and hated the same things, when they saw, as it 
were, with one pair of eyes, and heard with one pair 
of ears. What had causd them to drift apart? 

“ Maggie has grown up too good,” he said to 
himself, “ too good for me. But she’s a beauty ; and 
when I come home to stay we shall soon grow into the 
old ways.” 

That night before he retired he stood in his room 
regarding complacently his really handsome face in 
the quaint old mirror on his dresser. He adjusted 
his white silk cravat, bought with a dollar that his 
mother had denied herself of a certain kind of veg- 
etable all winter to give him — braced back his shoul- 
ders, and laughed as he thought of the adventure 
which he had with the Village Helper. 


A CRACK IN THE MARBLE 109 


u That old woman evidently thinks I can’t take 
care of myself,” he soliloquised. “ How ridiculous ! 
I can stop any time I want to. A fellow’s a fool 
who can’t. This making a beast of one’s self may be- 
long to such as Paddy Conley — perhaps Bill Gilooly, 
but not to one with the instinct of a gentleman. I’ll 
go on and take my degree,” with another pat of 
the white necktie — “ perhaps with honours — and be 
— be somebody out of the commonplace. Somebody 
Mother shall be proud of ; somebody Maggie shall 
be proud of ; somebody the village shall be proud to 
acknowledge. They’re all proud of me now. Take 
care of myself, indeed ! Take care of myself, ha, ha ! 
I’ll take care of myself, I’ll take care of Mother, 
I’ll take care — of — Maggie, of course. I’ll build 
churches, asylums, hospitals ; I’ll make my mark in 
the world, and let these poor simple villagers see a 
thing or two.” In his exhilaration of spirits he picked 
up a small fancy cane he had brought with him from 
the city, but had not ventured to carry in the village, 
and made two or three turns with it across the room. 
He was an hour in bed that night before he slept. 

While Alexander was a student in the city money 
of necessity was very scarce with him. His mother 
at home felt it bitterly that she was able to give her 
darling son such a scant supply. At intervals, by 


110 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


denying herself every luxury, and perhaps selling 
some of the vegetables she had put in the cellar for 
her own eating, she would scrape together an extra 
dollar, which she would carefully send in a registered 
letter. 

“ My Dear Son : 

“ Inclosed you will find a one dollar bill, which I send you 
with much love, to get any little needful for yourself. I wish 
from the bottom of my heart I could send you more. Do try 
and be careful of yourself; eat a-plenty, and do not work too 
hard. 

“ The minister’s wife has presented me with a small mug of 
orange marmalade which came from her folk in Scotland; I’ve 
just put it by till you come home, Alexander.” 

Then followed an account of the village happen- 
ings, and a scrap of intelligence about his old play- 
mate, Maggie Thompson. 

All other days of the week were of small account 
to this mother beside the one day that brought Alex- 
ander’s weekly letter. The first thought when she 
opened her eyes in the morning was, “ This is the 
day for his letter; I must rise early and get all done 
up to have time to read and enjoy it at leisure.” 
Her heart throbbed faster each time the letter was 
put into her hand, and she always opened it with 
trembling eagerness. 

If the boy carelessly forgot or neglected to write, 


A CRACK IN THE MARBLE 111 

she would spend anxious hours until the delayed letter 
arrived. 

Rising in the morning her first act was to raise 
the curtain of her bedroom window, and if she found 
the sun shining she murmured with a grateful heart, 
“ Sandy’ll have a fine day to-day,” and if it was wet 
or cold, she would sigh, “ The poor laddie’ll be 
miserable.” 

The various vacations were the events of the year ; 
everything in the small household centred around 
when Alexander came, and when he went. All the 
necessary, disagreeable duties of housekeeping were 
painstakingly performed during his absence, and all 
the little luxuries for the table were laid aside until 
he came home. When Mrs. McTavish remonstrated 
with the Widow for not giving more consideration to 
her own comfort, she would reply cheerfully: 

“ My good time is coming, Agnes, when Alexan- 
der gets his degree. Oh ! I’ll be that proud then — 
that proud that I’ll forget all the past ! ” 

The spirit of unrest, the spirit of the time, that 
was stirring in the outside world, had somehow crept 
into our village, and seized on no less a personage 
than Maggie Thompson. It was shortly after Alex- 
ander had gone that Maggie became possessed with 
a desire to go out into the world and do something 


112 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


— something worth while. Suddenly the village life 
had become slow, she longed for greater activity; 
she felt as though there was some great mission for 
her to perform in the world. As she dreamed and 
dreamed over it, that something seemed to mate- 
rialise in the profession of sick nursing, and she ven- 
tured after a while to ask her father and mother 
to allow her to enter a hospital for training. 

“ Nurse, indeed!” said her mother aghast, “a 
child of mine, my only one, go off to wait on other 
people, who are no kith an 5 kin to her — be their serv- 
ant? Don’t ever mention it in my hearing again, 
Maggie. Be contented to stay at home with Father 
an’ Mother — I’ll give ye two new frocks this summer, 
bairnie,” she added coaxingly, as she saw Maggie’s 
great disappointment. 

“ Nurse? ” said her father in bewildered surprise, 
eyeing the daughter whom he did not realise was 
grown up until that moment. “ Why must you go 
off from home? Surely I can support one bairn. 
I’ll let you keep my books for me, Maggie, if you 
want to work. Can’t let you go away from home 
nohow.” 

So there was nothing left for Maggie to do but 
look hungrily into the future and long for something 
to open up the path of what she thought progress. 


X 


THE WIDOW’S PRIDE 

T HE years passed; Alexander won his degree 
of Bachelor of Arts, and came back to the 
village. The day he arrived the village felt 
to be the proudest in its history. A small crowd of 
people were at the station to see him come home. 
Some were actuated by real friendship, and some came 
merely from curiosity to see whether Alexander would 
look or act “ anyways different ” now that he was a 
B. A. Maggie Thompson was there, and a number 
of the other girls, all dressed in their Sunday best. 
Bill Gilooly was there, and, with his hands black from 
the forge, grasped soulfully the white hand of his 
old schoolmate. 

But Bill, a few moments later, had to acknowledge 
to the old twinge of jealousy when he saw Alexander 
walk off from the depot with Maggie by his side — 
something of the same feeling that had agitated his 
bosom when the little girl Maggie had given Sandy 
a bite out of her apple. Then he heard Mrs. Mc- 
Tavish say, as she looked after Alexander’s retreat- 
113 


114 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


ing figure, 66 He’s the village B. A., an’ we’ve reason 
to be proud o’ him. Wonderful to think he knows 
Greek now.” 

Bill wondered why all the good things were for 
Alexander; and with a strange feeling of surprise, 
as if it had never occurred to him before, he remem- 
bered that he — Bill — was the brighter scholar of the 
two when they were both little fellows in the village 
school. Alexander never could help Maggie with 
her 44 sums,” and he was even worse in spelling than 
Bill himself. There came a day early in Bill’s life 
when his father thought that he had “ learnin’ ” 
enough, and took him into his blacksmith shop. For 
the first time it occurred to Bill that perhaps human 
hands had pulled his destiny awry. 

44 Maggie’s proud o’ him ’cause he’s the B. A.,” 
he muttered, looking after the retreating figures of 
Maggie and Alexander. 46 1 might ’a’ been a B. A. ef 
I’d stuck to books.” He felt so disconsolate that he 
went around to the Mapleton House for a drink. 

Alexander was not home a week before Maggie be- 
came conscious of an occasional air of excitement 
about him that she had never observed before. In 
two weeks she had discovered that his breath at times 
was a little suspicious, and, although the 44 temper- 
ance question ” had never previous to this cost her 


THE WIDOW’S PRIDE 


115 


even a thought, a nameless fear crept into her heart 
which made it very heavy. She would like to have 
spoken to Sandy about it, but dread of wounding 
his feelings kept her silent. 

Before three weeks had elapsed, about ten o’clock 
one night, Alexander staggered into his mother’s sit- 
ting-room, and into her presence, muttered a few 
incoherent words to her, and as she smelled the fumes 
of the whisky, dropped on the couch in a drunken 
stupor. 

She arose from her chair and stood gazing at her 
son as if turned to stone, then she raised both hands 
as if to ward off a blow, and cried bitterly, “ The 
sins of the fathers are visited upon the children! 
Upon the children ! Upon the children! O God ! O 
God! is there no escape? ” 

An hour afterward, when Alexander was sleep- 
ing heavily, his mother crept to her own bedroom. 
She could not weep, she could not pray, so she lay 
on her bed staring dry-eyed into the darkness, and 
listening to the clock in the sitting-room striking the 
passing hours. After a while the silence seemed to 
suffocate, to craze her, and she cried: 

“O God, I cannot think of Thee ; when I would my 
mind turns back to him — my boy. He is my only 
one, my only one. It is such a short time since 


116 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


he was so little and so warm lying here on my arm. 
If you let him go down to a drunkard’s grave, if 
you let him be lost ! — What are my curses to Thee ? 
Give him back to me! Give him back! I want him 
as he was ! Give me back my pure, young boy ! ” 

Did reason at that moment totter from its throne? 
Or was it pride which enabled the Widow to enact 
the part she thenceforth played before the village? 
The villagers never could decide the question. The 
following morning she presented to the village, and 
to the world, a smiling face, and the neighbours 
looked on and wondered. Some of the “ curious 
bodies,” a few of whom are found in every village, 
went so far as to steal suddenly into the Widow’s 
summer kitchen, when she was out there working, “ to 
ketch her unawares ” ; but no matter how suddenly 
they swooped in upon the little woman they never 
failed to find her clothed in her smile. When Alex- 
ander was staggering around scarcely able to stand 
on his feet, his mother spoke about “ that nasty dizzi- 
ness in his head,” and when he was dead drunk she 
said that “ Poor Sandy was tired right out,” or was 
“ seriously ill.” The villagers soon learned that they 
dare not speak of his infirmity in any other way than 
as his “ illness .” 

Not even to her minister did the Widow show the 


THE WIDOW’S PRIDE 


117 


least quaking of heart. . . . She walked to the 

church Sundays clasping her Bible and psalm-book 
in her black-gloved hands, her head, if anything, 
held a trifle higher, as became the mother of the 
village B. A. 

“ My, my,” whispered Mrs. McTavish confiden- 
tially into the ear of Granny Neilson, “ Jessie McBain 
is so carried away wi’ pride she’ll no unburden her 
heart til even her old friend an’ next-door neighbour.” 

“ Dinna be hard wi’ her, Agnes,” said Granny 
gently, “ she’s bearin’ in silence as her Lord hae 
taught her. . . . An’ there’s no denyin’,” she 
added with a quizzical twist of her sweet old lips, 
“ that her son is th’ village B. A., why should she 
not be proud o’ it? ” 

It is not to be supposed that Alexander made no 
resistance to his own downfall. The morning after 
that first night on which he came intoxicated into the 
presence of his mother he berated himself bitterly in 
the privacy of his own bedroom. “ I must stop 
this ! ” he said, walking the floor in long strides. 
“ I will give them up — the drinks ! Give them up 
entirely! I can , of course I can — if I make up my 
mind to do it; and I must do it! Suppose Maggie 
had seen me! When Maggie and I are married I’ll 
quit all this, and of course we shall be — some day. 


118 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


The sooner the better I think now, if I have got 
to quit. I haven’t said anything to her about it 
yet, but I know it’s all right.” 

Then he began to dramatise himself walking up 
the steps of a brown stone mansion where Maggie 
was the mistress ; he made her very beautiful, and her 
smile of welcome to him, her husband, was bewitch- 
ing. The house was furnished with every luxury, 
but Maggie was never happy in it when he was 
absent. He was a leading man in the place, looked 
up to by everybody, consulted, by reason of his 
education, on all subjects of public interest. Maggie 
was a handsome, talented woman, much above the 
average in both respects; people remarked when 
they saw her or heard her name mentioned in con- 
nection with something literary or philanthropic that 
she was his wife. He brightened up very much while 
he was painting this picture, and before he went 
down to his breakfast he was quite sure that he 
would never drink again — to excess. 

But in one short week the unfortunate dreamer w T as 
drunk again. 

“ A chip o’ the old block,” whispered a few of the 
less sympathetic in the village, when Alexander’s 
drinking habits became generally known. 

When he had been home about two months his 


THE WIDOW’S PRIDE 


119 


mother sent out invitations for his birthday party. 
He had been sober now for several weeks, and she 
thought to live down and ignore the past. On the 
evening of the party, shortly before the first guests 
began to arrive, the young man walked home so in- 
toxicated that he could scarcely stand upright. His 
mother, with the help of Bill Gilooly, who had as- 
sisted him home, helped him upstairs to his room. 
When they had placed him on his bed, the mother 
locked his door and hung the key on a hook in the 
hall. 

“ An 5 she came right down to meet us all wi’ th’ 
same awfu’ smile on her face,” said Mrs. McTavish; 
“ pit one in mind o’ th’ grinnin’ death’s-head on a 
p’ison bottle, and regretted so that Sandy’s illness 
wouldna permit him to welcome his guests.” 

High and low in the village (if we recognised such 
distinctions) were at that party. The minister and 
the elders of the church were there, as befitted the 
occasion. One-Armed Joe was there to entertain the 
company by some tricks of jugglery. Granny Neil- 
son was there because out of respect for her years she 
was invited to every gathering. Bill Gilooly was 
there to play “pieces” on his jew’s-harp. It took 
Bill half an hour to put on the first stand-up collar 
he had ever worn, and when it was on it scraped 


120 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


his neck terribly, felt too tight, and made his face 
redder than ever. But Maggie Thompson had given 
him a smile of approval, and Bill would have endured 
twenty collars for that smile. Maggie Thompson 
was there, the belle of the evening in rose-coloured 
frock and ribbons. Mrs. McShane was there because 
she had offered her services to wash dishes and do 
waiting. Indeed, it would be easier to mention who 
were not there than who were. 

When the evening was about half spent Bill 
Gilooly suddenly disappeared from the company and 
stole down to Joe Pepper’s tavern. When there he 
procured some whisky from Joe in a bottle. Shoving 
the bottle into his trousers’ pocket he hurried back 
to the scene of merriment. When he thought no 
eyes were upon him he slipped upstairs, unlocked 
Alexander’s door, placed the bottle to his not un- 
willing lips, and poured half its contents down his 
throat. 

“ He’d come to, fur sartin, ef I didn’t give him 
more,” soliloquised Bill, “ an’ put poor Maggie to 
the blush.” 

Locking the door again Bill stole downstairs, hid 
the bottle containing the remainder of the whisky 
under a currant bush in the garden, and came back 
to the company looking as innocent as if he had been 


THE WIDOW’S PRIDE 


121 


just out taking a breath of fresh air, and feeling as 
satisfied as if he had been performing some phi- 
lanthropic work. 

The party broke up at the usual hour, and on the 
road home the guests whispered their worst fears to 
each other in awed undertones. 

After a time of waiting for something to turn 
up, Alexander secured a position as bookkeeper in 
the village general store, an establishment which kept 
a little of everything, from quinine pills and codfish 
to at least one piece of silk and a case of cheap 
jewelry, did a large country trade, and “ gave 
credit.” An old friend of Alexander’s mother, an 
elder in the church who had been at the boy’s chris- 
tening, owned the store, and with a desire to help 
the young man gave him employment. 

About this time intelligence began to creep into 
the village that various positions had presented them- 
selves to Alexander while he was yet in the city, but 
an inquiry into his habits dispelled all thought of an 
engagement. 

In a short time it became evident that the elder’s 
act of kindness but supplied the young man with 
money to indulge his appetite, and in a few months 
his round, boyish face became thin and nervous- 
looking. 


122 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


By this time Maggie was going around with a very 
sober face, and a look of wounded loyalty in her 
eyes. But beneath it all was a resolute expression, as 
though she clearly saw her duty, and nothing was 
going to deter from doing it. Maggie had the stuff 
in her of which martyrs are made; somehow she 
felt that it devolved upon her to sacrifice herself — 
to be crucified, if need be — for this weak piece of 
humanity whose life had so early touched hers. And, 
like other martyrs, she felt a sort of ecstatic joy in 
the crucifixion. 

“ He must be mine to take care of,” she said to 
herself ; “ he came to me first — that day that he 
started out from home. It is the work that was 
given me.” 

Her love seemed like that of a mother’s ; that great 
brooding, protective feeling which only women can 
fully understand; and which becomes stronger and 
more tenacious in proportion to the weakness and 
failure of the object that calls it out. More than 
once when Alexander was coming staggering along 
the sidewalk, liable at any minute to fall headlong, 
Maggie was seen by the neighbours running out to 
take his arm, and safely conduct him home. If at 
any time he acted stubborn and refused to comply 
with her wishes, all she had to do was to whisper 


THE WIDOW’S PRIDE 


123 


into his ear, “ Giant Despair will get you,” and 
immediately, in his condition of dethroned manhood, 
the old fear of his childhood would seize him, and she 
could lead him whither she would. 

One Saturday afternoon, when the village was fuller 
of loungers than usual, Maggie saw Alexander stag- 
gering into the Mapleton House, scarcely able to keep 
his feet. She knew that inside that house meant more 
drinking, and, forgetting all about the great im- 
propriety of a woman being seen going into such a 
place, and all about the bleared eyes of men that 
would boldly stare her out of countenance, she stepped 
quickly over the threshold of the barroom, grasped 
the young inebriate by the arm, whispered into his 
ear the talismanic words, and led him out. 

Maggie’s parents were a very indulgent pair, who 
had allowed their only child to do much as she pleased 
all her life — except leave home — but this act shocked 
them out of the lethargy of a lifetime, and they were 
determined that the “ friendship ” — they were careful 
afterward to let the village know that nothing more 
existed among the young people — should go no fur- 
ther. That night they had a long and serious talk, 
indeed the talk extended into the small hours of the 
morning, and at the breakfast table the mother said: 

Maggie, dear, your father and I have changed 


124 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


our minds ; after a long talk last night we’ve decided 
to let you go to th’ hospital an’ study nursing. After 
all, it’s better for a young girl to see life from 
various sides, an’ a hospital course can do you no 
harm whatever, so your father an’ I think.” 

44 Yes, yes,” said the father, trying to pacify "his 
lonely heart, and taking a sup of coffee to cover his 
emotion. 

44 We think it better for you to go now soon, 
dearie,” continued the mother, 44 an’ have it over 
with.” 

44 But Sandy, Mother ! ” said Maggie, in a tone 
that sounded like the cry of a heart, 44 who’ll take 
care of him ? ” 

44 Tut, lassie,” returned the mother, 44 Sandy’ll be 
a heap better off without you. A man grows weak 
always dependin’ on a woman. It’s far better for 
you to go an’ leave him by himself. That’s just what 
he needs — to be left alone. You mind, Maggie, when 
you were a wee baby, an’ awful slow about learnin’ 
to walk, we cared for you so, havin’ only yourself ; 
till one day we just let you go, an’ your father 
stood across the room an’ said, 4 Come, Maggie, here’s 
a sweetie for you,’ — holdin’ up a big pink bull’s-eye — 
an’ you started off, balancin’ yourself with your little 
arms, on which I had tied two pink bowknots, an’ 


THE WIDOW’S PRIDE 


125 


walked clear, all by your lone, across that room. An’ 
from that day you stopped failin’. People never can 
really do anything until they can do it all by their 
lone.” 

“ No, they can’t,” said Maggie’s father, taking 
another sip of coffee at the recollection of Maggie’s 
first steps alone. 

“ We’ll write to-day, girlie, an’ find out where 
you’d better go; I’m anxious to have it over with, 
an’ get you back with us again.” 

Maggie said no more; she never even dreamed of 
setting aside her mother’s authority; but now that 
the path of progress, as she had once chosen to con- 
sider it, was open, it did not look nearly as inviting as 
it once did. Was it right to leave Sandy? she asked 
her secret heart many times. 

After much writing to various places, which Mag- 
gie’s mother at once commenced, the girl received a 
call to a hospital in New York, and her thrifty man- 
aging mother went about preparing her for the new 
work. 

“ I’m glad to have her go away as far as possible; 
she’ll be gone two or three years, an’ who can tell 
what will happen in that time?” said the mother 
to her husband in the privacy of their own room. 
“ Nurses’ holidays are few an’ far between, for which 


126 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


I am also glad; an’ who would have believed my 
mother’s heart could have been brought to feel so? 
Her father an’ mother will have to go an’ see her 
she added after a moment’s silence. 

“ Yes, yes,” said Maggie’s father ; he was unable 
to steady his voice for more. 


XI 


BILL GILOOLY’S INSPIRATION 

S HORTLY after Maggie left, great discrepan- 
cies in Alexander’s bookkeeping obliged his 
mother’s old friend to dispense with his serv- 
ices ; and when out of employment, and without the 
girl’s restraining presence, his down-hill course be- 
came more rapid. He began to lounge around the 
Mapleton House, and seat himself in one of the large 
armchairs in front of it. 

Those who believe in the “ souls of things,” cannot 
but think that some evil genius has taken up its abode 
in those wooden arms, empowering them to lure to 
their embrace the idle and unwary. 

As time passed, and Sandy lingered longer and 
later at the Mapleton House, all of his old friends 
seemed to grow ashamed of him, and fight shy of him, 
except Bill Gilooly. Some said it was the Irish good 
nature in Bill which would not allow him to neglect 
his old schoolmate, and some said it was Bill was 
fond of whisky himself, and came in for treats by 
127 


128 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, R. A. 


being with Alexander. But the truth was, although 
no one suspected it, Bill was doing it all for Maggie’s 
sake. Poor Maggie, she was sent away where she 
could do nothing, and he, Bill, would take her place 
and be “ company ” for Alexander. It gave him a 
warm glow about his heart to feel that he was doing 
Maggie a favour. Bill had never been taught to re- 
gard whisky-drinking as anything out of the nor- 
mal, but Bill had better nerves than Alexander, and 
had not the craving for stimulant that possessed the 
latter. “ I git full juist fur the fun av it,” was the 
reason he gave for drinking whisky. 

Many a night in the barroom of the Maple- 
ton House Bill played “ Molly Darling ” “ Money 
Musk," “ The Old Folks at Home” and other famil- 
iar airs to an appreciative audience ; at times with his 
jew’s-harp “ running the whole gamut of feeling ” in 
such a manner as to wring tears from bleared and 
bloodshot eyes, and cause the intelligent listener to 
wonder whether Bill was fated to be classed among 
the “ village Hampdens,” “ the mute, inglorious Mil- 
tons,” and “ the flowers that blush unseen, and waste 
their sweetness on the desert air.” Perhaps it was 
more the desire for companionship and appreciation 
than anything else that attracted Bill to the bar- 
room; he had nowhere else to exercise his natural 


BILL GILOOLY’S INSPIRATION 129 


musical ability except the cramped, uncomfortable 
cabin he called home. 

All the men and boys of the village and surround- 
ing country, with the exception of Crazy Tim, were 
admitted and welcomed on cold nights and rainy days 
into the light and cheer and music of Joe Pepper’s 
barroom. 

Poor Crazy Tim had no money, and there was 
little prospect that he would ever have any, so he 
was felt to be an incumbrance in the barroom. The 
villagers walking past the tavern at night could 
often see Tim hovering around the open door, or try- 
ing to 66 peek in ” through a slit in the window blind. 
No place in the world seemed so much like heaven to 
poor Crazy Tim as Joe Pepper’s barroom when Bill 
Gilooly was playing on his jew’s-harp within. 

One night Bill and Alexander had stayed until a 
late hour in the said barroom. As it happened, Bill 
was so taken up with his music — having improvised 
several numbers that evening — that he did not drink 
much, but when it came time to go home Alexander 
was so “ full,” to use Bill’s expressive word, from 
the many treats the music had elicited that Bill had 
to lead him home. 

Having accomplished his self-appointed task, Bill 
went to his own home. 


130 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

Somehow the music had stirred the divine in Bill 
that night, and as he was preparing for bed he had 
a discussion with that higher self something after 
this fashion: 

“The village B. A. is goin’ to fail ’em; nothin’s 
plainer. Sandy ain’t goin’ to pull up, spite o’ Greek, 
spite o’ Latin, that’s as sure as shootin’. What will 
the village do then for a lad as knows Greek an’ 
Latin? What? . . . Why can’t you fire up, 

Bill Gilooly, an’ be somebody the village ’d be proud 
av? Learn Greek? Why not? Learn Latin? Why 
not? Drap yer jew’s-harp ; drap yer checkers ; drap 
the drinks an’ take to books ; that’s th’ hull av it in 
a nutshell. Ye was quick at lamin’ as fur as ye went ; 
why can’t ye go furder? Do ye hear me, ye lazy 
spalpeen! . . . My! wouldn’t ye s’prise ’em! 

They think now yer no good fur nothin’ but 
shoin’ horses, playin’ the jew’s-harp an check- 
ers. . . . Wouldn’t you s’prise ’em, though! 

Bill Gilooly, B. A. ; wouldn’t they laugh fit to 
split ! . . . William Henry Gilooly, B. A. ; 
wouldn’t that knock the spots off.” He jumped to 
his feet. “ I know I could do it ! . . . I know I 

could if — if Maggie’d care ” 

He stopped short, strode across the room to the 
seven-by-nine mirror hanging on the wall, and look- 


BILL GILOOLY’S INSPIRATION 131 


ing at his freckled reflection there, he shook his fist 
at it, laughed hysterically as if intoxicated with 
his great idea, and struck his breast a resounding 
slap. 

There was a something in Bill’s face at that mo- 
ment which caught his own attention, a 46 feeling ” 
which an artist would have called fine. He gazed at 
himself a few seconds in wonder as if he had just 
found himself. Then he added suddenly and fiercely, 
“ Pshaw ! what’s the good? Who cares what becomes 
of Bill Gilooly? Ef Maggie’d care ” 

He turned from the mirror, puffed out the candle, 
and jumped into his sheetless bed. 

If “ prayer is the heart’s sincere desire uttered or 
unexpressed,” Bill fell asleep praying — with scant 
faith — that the time might come when “ Maggie’d 
care.” 

The next day the thought of trying to make some- 
thing of himself would not let go of Bill ; it haunted 
him from morning until night. His father kept him 
in the blacksmith shop from daylight until dark; 
where was he to get time for self-improvement? 
Suddenly a bright idea shot into his head — he 
would rise early in the morning and begin on some 
book. 

Bill wondered as he was going to bed how he would 


132 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


ever wake, for he generally slept soundly until six 
o’clock, at which time his mother called him. But 
the following morning he woke at four, and he learned 
for the first time the power of the will over sleep. 
The morning was cold, for it was now winter time; 
to waste wood on a fire merely for himself was out of 
the question, so Bill bethought him to go to the 
cellar. 

Lighting one of his mother’s tallow dips, he 
groped his way down the narrow steep steps, 
dropped some melted tallow on the end of the bench on 
which she kept her washtubs, stuck the unlighted end 
of the dip in the hardening grease, and sat down on a 
soapbox to study. 

The only book which he had succeeded in finding in 
the house was his old school arithmetic ; so by the dim 
light of the tallow dip, with the mice from their 
crannies in the wall peering curiously out at him, 
Bill “ done sums ” — he was a natural mathematician 
— until six o’clock. 

The next day, in Joe Pepper’s barroom, Bill 
found, in brilliant paper binding, “ Red Rat’s 
Daughter ” and the three following mornings he im- 
proved his mind reading that book. 

“ She ain’t nowheres as good-lookin’ nor as as 
smart as Maggie,” he soliloquised (referring to the 


BILL GILOOLY’S INSPIRATION 133 

heroine) as he finished the last page and shut the 
book. 

It seemed as if Bill’s resources were now exhausted ; 
he could find no more literature around Joe Pepper’s, 
nor in his own home, and the early morning study 
ceased. 


XII 


THE WOMEN INTERFERE 


A 


LEXANDER, like other drunkards, passed 


through various moods in the process of 
becoming intoxicated. The first glass made 


him genial ; he shook hands a good deal. The second 
glass induced him to quote poetry ; Shakespeare was 
his favourite. Sometimes the quotations were amus- 
ingly appropriate, and sometimes they were wide of 
the mark. At a more advanced stage of intoxication 
he became quiet, and seemed to wish to hide himself 
from the eyes of his fellow-men; even from Bill 
Gilooly, with whom he now spent every evening. 

“ It seems to be in the blood of thim Scotch to 
drink,” said Mrs. Brady to me in a confidential whis- 
per one day we were talking about Alexander’s sad 
career. An hour afterwards Mrs. McTavish said 
with a sigh, 66 If we could get Alexander away frae 
the influence o’ Bill Gilooly there might be somethin’ 
done wi’ him; them Irish take to whisky like ducks 
to water.” 

Alexander differed from Bill in many ways, but 


134 


THE WOMEN INTERFERE 


135 


nothing more than the attacks of remorse and humil- 
iation which he suffered after every heavy carouse. 
There was more or less sameness between them all. 

The day of the fall fair a number of farmers had 
come into the village, lingered around the tavern, and 
vied with each other in treating ; as a consequence by 
noon Bill and Alexander were both quite intoxicated. 

Bill climbed into a hayloft to sleep off the effect 
of his over-indulgence. In some incidental way Crazy 
Tim found him there, and spent the rest of the day 
climbing every half hour the ladder leading to the 
hayloft to gaze with solemn wonder at Bill’s motion- 
less form. When it began to grow dark Crazy Tim 
gathered great armfuls of hay and spread it over 
Bill. Then saying to himself, 46 There, the bears 
won’t git him now,” he climbed down the ladder and 
went home for the night. 

Alexander went home, and climbing upstairs to his 
room, he staggered across to the small fireplace where 
his mother had lighted a fire, the day being cool. He 
sat a few moments gazing with bleared eyes into the 
wood flames. His whisky had made him nervous. 

“ Alexander McBain, — B. A. — successor to — 
Paddy Conley,” he muttered as the result of his re- 
flections. “ I was once a little white babe,” he con- 
tinued, “ rocked so ” (clasping his hands and swaying 


136 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

them back and forth) ; “ then I went to school hold- 
ing Maggie’s hand — holding Maggie’s hand — I said 
my prayers — said my prayers — prayers — prayers.” 
He dropped on his knees beside the bed, burying his 
face in his hands. 

After a few moments he straightened up, raised 
both arms to Heaven, and cried: 

“ ‘ My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. 

Words without thoughts never to Heaven go. No, never, 
never, never l 9,9 

Then he rose from his knees, walked the floor, beat 
his breast and wept aloud. “ The rankling serpent’s 
teeth that succeed debauch were biting into his soul.” 
God only knows how far on the downward road a man 
goes before the divine in him ceases to rise up, and 
expostulate, and seek for its rightful place of 
sovereignty. 

Ten minutes after he was down at the Mapleton 
House, where he tossed down glass after glass, until 
he could no longer stand on his feet. As he was one 
of the village boys, and a Bachelor of Arts, he was 
allowed to sober up lying on the barroom floor behind 
a screen, instead of being pitched out of doors like 
Paddy Conley and all no-account and foreign drunks. 

The women of the village talked the matter over, 


THE WOMEN INTERFERE 


137 


and it was the general opinion that Joe Pepper 
should refuse to give whisky to the Widow’s son. 
But who was going to convince Joe of his duty in 
this matter? 

At last Mrs. McShane’s warm Irish heart could 
contain itself no longer, and she determined to make 
at least one attempt to work on the good nature, or 
conscience, of Joe Pepper. 

Mrs. McShane was a little woman, less than five 
feet in height. She wore short skirts, leaned for- 
ward from the waist when in locomotion, at what was 
calculated to be about an angle of thirty degrees, 
and walked so fast that not an ounce of superfluous 
flesh ever got a chance to accumulate on her active 
little body. She swung both arms energetically, and 
grasped in the middle a half -folded umbrella, which 
she carried rain or shine. On dress occasions she 
wore, in honour of her husband, Michael McShane, 
who had died a dozen years before, a long crape veil 
fastened to the back of her bonnet, and a pair of 
black lace mitts, which covered her wrinkled yellow 
hands to the knuckles. Michael in his lifetime often 
got drunk and abused her roundly, but she seemed to 
think that was no more than should be expected of a 
husband, and held no grudge against him whatever. 

Michael McShane married Bridget when she was 


138 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


young, hearty, and an Irish beauty. He had just 
returned from the Civil War, in which he had received 
a few slight wounds; and on the strength of these 
wounds a few years after his marriage he retired 
from the conflict of trying to wrest a living from 
the world, and left to poor Bridget the work of pro- 
viding for the home. He drank very often, and on 
those occasions made a practice of venting his over- 
excited feelings on his wife. The village was not 
slow about expressing itself regarding his short- 
comings ; but even the villagers forgave poor Mike 
when they saw him, with meekened face, stretched 
in his coffin — a grand one covered with black cloth, 
provided by a certain order of which he was a mem- 
ber — with the prayer-beads twisted among his fingers 
and the crucifix clasped in his folded hands. 

After her husband’s death, Bridget’s vocation, that 
by which she earned her living and that of her son 
Jimmy, was growing vegetables on five or six acres 
of land, and raising chickens, both of which she sold 
through the fall and winter to the villagers; and her 
avocation, that by which she got recreation, was man- 
aging things for her neighbours — “ givin’ ’em a help- 
in’ hand or a word av advice.” She had thought 
about interviewing the proprietor of the Mapleton 
House for a week, and at the end of that time he said 


THE WOMEN INTERFERE 


139 


to herself, “ Bridget McShane, ef je can’t do that 
much fur a neighbour, yer no worthy branch av the 
Dooly family from which ye sprung,” and she 
screwed her courage up to the point of bearding Joe 
in his den. With the idea of making a stronger im- 
pression, she donned for the occasion her crape veil 
and black mitts. 

“ Thinks I to mesilf, faint heart never won fair 
lady,” she said in recounting her experiences with Joe, 
“ an’ all unbeknowst to anny one av ’em I walked 
right up to the front door av the Mapleton House 
dressed in me Sunday best, but thryin’ to shrink me 
physical frame up as shmall as possible, to kape peo- 
ple frum noticin’ me — it may be all right fur men 
she added parenthetically, “ but a tavern is no place 
fur a woman to be seen goin’ into — an’ niver a one 
av me can tell how I ever had the stren’th to walk in ; 
but onct inside the door I took a sate inside the set- 
tin’-room, all fixed up wid tissue-paper flowers as 
grand as you please, while the hired girl went fur Joe. 

“ He comes in all smilin’ an’ bowin’, but mind you, 
I wint there to spake me mind, an’ I waren’t goin’ to 
be smiled out av it, nor bowed out av It, aither. So I 
burst right out, as a body may say, before he had 
time to upsot me nerves, an’ says I : 

“ 6 Mr. Pepper,’ say I — I calls him mister, thinkin’ 


140 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


to plase him, but nary a gintleman I thought him — 
6 it’s terrible the way that poor b’y Sandy takes on 
afther he has been on a spree,’ says I. 4 Them as has 
heerd him tells me he groans an’ walks the floor, cryin’ 
an’ talkin’ to himself ; sayin’ poetry — an’ that’s a bad 
sign, I’ve heerd ’em say — min’s goin’ — an’ falls down 
on his knees an’ gits up again ; wan ud think he was 
clean gone out av his senses. An’ his poor mother’s 
hair turnin’ grey listenin’ to him downstairs — she’s a 
woman to be pitied amongst us. 

“ ‘ An’ it’s ourselves as knows him here all our 
lives,’ says I, continuin’ on, 4 sence he was a little fel- 
low playin’ weighdee bucket-tee on a boord across the 
rail fence wid Maggie Thompson an’ the other chil- 
dren, an’ it’s the breakin’ av our hearts to see him 
troubled so.’ 

“ But, God bless ye, Joe was lookin’ up at the 
ceilin’ rubbin’ his two fat hands together, an’ almost 
smilin’. An’ before I had time to ketch breath, says 
he, kindly-like, as if he was more sorry fur me than 
fur Sandy or the Widdy: 

“ 4 Don’t you fret, Mrs. McShane, he’ll git over 
that soon ; that’s the way wid all av thim when they 
begins; but by the time he’s forty he’ll git drunk an’ 
stay drunk a week, an’ not care a haporth. I’ve seen 
’em take on awful, scores an’ scores av time,’ says he. 


THE WOMEN INTERFERE 


141 


4 but they all git used to it after a while, give up all 
tears an’ regrits, an’ it becomes quite nachural, as 
nachural as day.’ 

“ 6 Bother you , 9 says I to mesilf, but I kep’ a civil 
tongue in my head, for why? I was in his house. 

“ Just thin he heerd a noise in the barroom, an’ 
bate a hasty retrate. 

“ c Sorrow go wid ye,’ says I — to myself again — 
an’ I came away lavin’ such a miscreant fur the 
Almighty to dale wid. 

“ ’Twasn’t like I was thryin’ to upsot the man’s 
business,” she continued after a short silence. “ I 
ain’t no timperance woman, God forbid! Let him 
sell whisky to everybody he wants to, barrin’ the 
poor Widdy’s son, who can’t sthop whin he has had 
as much as is good fur him — an’ wan as we all knows 
around here.” 

By a strange coincidence the Village Helper had 
also decided to have a talk with the proprietor of the 
Mapleton House, and, as it happened, went in about 
ten minutes after Mrs. McShane came out. Dress 
up for the occasion? Not she. Her blue gingham 
apron and her sleeves rolled up to her elbows showed 
that she had just come from her work. She stepped 
deliberately over the threshold of the Mapleton 
House without any nervous tremors. It was ac- 


142 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


knowledged that the Village Helper was ready with 
her tongue, but not only her tongue, but her whole 
body talked. The poise of her head, her carriage, 
her step, spoke in a manner that struck terror into the 
hearts of evildoers. Even when she was in repose her 
large sinewy hands looked as if their pent-up energy 
was struggling for freedom to work some reform. 

She was not so choice in the selection of the words 
in which she addressed Joe Pepper as the former vis- 
itor. She was a tall woman, and as she stood in front 
of Joe she seemed to grow three or four inches taller. 
With her arms akimbo she thus addressed him: 

“ Why are you here in the village, Joe Pepper, 
takin’ up the room useful people want, eatin’ the 
bread they are hungry for, wearin’ the clothes they 
need to keep them warm? Do you know yourself 
what yer here for, or are ye only standin’ ’round not 
knowin’ what to do with y erself ? ” 

Then she launched into w T hat he was doing for 
Sandy McBain and a number of other young men 
in the village and surrounding country, not being 
careful to mince her words. “ Ef ye want to sell 
whisky,” she added, “ why kin’t ye go off among 
the Indians or Chinese, an’ not be botherin’ our 
boys ? ” 

Joe smiled grimly all through the denunciations, 


THE WOMEN INTERFERE 


143 


knowing well the uselessness of trying to stop her, but 
as soon as she went out he stood as if transfixed, gaz- 
ing at the wall. In spite of his smile some of the 
Village Helper’s strong words had struck home. A 
shiver shook his rotund form ; he was not an old man, 
but suddenly he felt old — old in sin. The despairing 
eyes of more than one man seemed to glare and glare 
at him out of the recesses of the room which was now 
darkening for twilight, more than one young man 
who had come into his bar, strong, alert, manful, and 
had gone out, perhaps after years of coming, totter- 
ing, maudlin, unmanned. Bony fingers from prema- 
ture graves pointed at him, and voices shrieked, “ You 
did it! You did it! You did it! Joe Pepper.” 
Weary-eyed wives wailed, “ You did it, Joe Pepper! 
You have fattened on our heart’s blood.” Hungry 
children cried, “You ate our bread! You did it! 
You did it! You did it, Joe Pepper!” 

He shuddered again, and sank heavily into a chair. 

Joe Pepper was born and reared in the village, and 
people said he was a round-faced bright little fellow 
with as good a promise of growing to be a man of 
whom the village would be proud as any child in it. 
But Joe always disliked work; he had tried his hand 
at several things in the village, and eventually he 
gravitated to the position of bartender in the Maple- 


144 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

ton House. He found this less like work than any- 
thing he had ever attempted, and he stayed at it until 
he became the proprietor of said House. He had 
more money than he ever made at any other business, 
and this he liked well. He drove such a showy turn- 
out that one day when he and his wife were out for 
an airing Mrs. Brady looked after them as they flew 
past, and said, “ Well, whatever kin be said again 
whisky, it’s done a good deal for Joe an’ Jemima 
Pepper.” He could now wear fur in winter, and 
white duck in summer; but every year his eyes were 
receding in his head, his cheeks growing heavier, and 
his nose thicker. It was Mrs. McTavish who said 
that she could almost see his brow contracting, and 
it was hard for her to believe that he was the same 
little chappie that used to run about the village 
streets with the bright eyes and white round fore- 
head. “ What think you,” she added, “ must be goin’ 
on in th’ heart when th’ face, which they say is but th’ 
index o’ th’ buke, is growin’ like yon ? 99 

He was a little ashamed of his business at first, and 
tried to make it as respectable as possible by wearing 
the cleanest of aprons and keeping the cleanest of 
bars. He prided himself a good deal about having 
a comfortable place for a man to get a meal, and a 
horse to eat his peck of oats, but as the years ad- 


THE WOMEN INTERFERE 


145 


vanced he grew to priding himself on his skill in draw- 
ing money out of pockets for nothing but the poorest 
and cheapest of whisky. To-night, as he looked in the 
darkness at the mocking phantoms of his memory, 
he wondered for one short moment whether it was 
worth while to make such havoc in the world for the 
sake of the bread he and his family ate, the garments 
they put on, and the little wad he was accumulating 
in the bank. “ I suppose,” he said to himself, as he 
continued to gaze into the dark corner of the room, 
“ it would be better for the village and the world if 
I had never been bom.” He remembered dimly hear- 
ing a scripture verse which read, “ Good were it for 
that man had he never been bom” He wondered 
whether that would apply to him — Joe Pepper. A 
vision of what he might have done to leave the world 
at least as well as he had found it — and not simply be 
in debt to it for the food he ate — by being a producer 
of tubs and pails, horseshoes or man shoes, or some 
other useful commodity, flashed for an instant before 
his mind’s eye. What right had he to be consuming 
the earth’s products and giving no adequate return? 
But he drew the back of his hand across his eyes, and 
walking to the bar, he poured out a glass of whisky 
and swallowed it in a gulp. His qualms of con- 
science vanished immediately. “ I’ll leave a wad some 


146 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


day to a church or a hospital ; that’ll straighten ac- 
counts,” he said as he replaced the glass on the 
counter. 

It was night, and consequently a busy time for 
him. It was Saturday night, and the law required 
him to clear off his counter and shut his front door at 
an early hour. But nothing apparently obliged him 
to discontinue his sale of whisky, and by midnight 
Alexander McBain, Bill Gilooly, One-Armed Joe, 
along with a couple of farmers, had torn off their 
crown of Godhood and manhood, and were laid out in 
a drunken stupor on the floor of a small room adjoin- 
ing the barroom, among beer kegs, broken chairs 
and bottles, and other barroom debris. 

Joe took a final look at his victims before shutting 
the door on them for the night, saying to himself, 
“ They’re far enough gone not to make any disturb- 
ance before momin’.” Then he went back to his till 
and counted with much satisfaction the coins which 
he had taken in through the day. 

As he was slipping his coins into a small soiled cot- 
ton bag, the door which he had a moment before un- 
locked opened, and One-Armed Joe’s little Reuben 
stepped into the barroom. 

“ Is my paw here?” he piped in childish treble, 
looking with a child’s direct gaze at the proprietor. 


THE WOMEN INTERFERE 


147 


Joe Pepper looked up suddenly from his money 
bag and saw standing before him a small pathetic- 
looking urchin dressed in short knee pantaloons and 
blouse of a faded olive. He was hatless, and his hair 
was shoved straight back from his high, prominent 
forehead. 

For one instant something like compassion stirred 
in the hard heart of the man at sight of the child. 
The village people had often said that they were sure 
they did not know where that child of One-Armed Joe 
came from with that face and those great searching 
eyes. But Joe Pepper, feeling provoked a t himself 
for his chicken-heartedness, as he chose to consider it, 
said roughly : 

“ What would bring yer pa here, I’d like to know? ” 

“ Your drinks would bring him here,” said the child 
artlessly. “My maw says if it were not for your 
drinks he could make many a copper, even with his 
one hand, and have them to give to his fam’ly. 
Won’t you stop givin’ my paw drinks, Mr. Pepper? ” 
he added plaintively, looking at the hardened man 
with a wide comprehensive expression of eye as if he 
could see things in a wider sense than those who had 
longer contact with the world. 

“ Go ’way home with you, child ; you don’t under- 
stand,” said Joe uneasily, touched in spite of himself 


148 ALEXANDER McBAlN, B. A. 


by the innocent face and words. He had risen from 
his seat and opened the door while speaking. 

46 Well — well — where’s my paw? ” stammered Reu- 
ben, as he walked to the door. 

“ Go down to Johnnie Looney’s shop,” said Joe 
Pepper ; “ p’raps ye’ll find him in there playin’ 
checkers. That’s where he spends most of his time.” 

“ Here, buy yerself some sweeties with this,” he 
continued, shoving a small silver bit into the child’s 
hand. 

The child passed out, and Joe shut and locked the 
door. 

“ The devil ! ” he muttered to himself, “ I must git 
rid o’ him somehow. I don’t like these young uns 
cornin’ ’round lookin’ like — like that . Gives one the 
shivers.” He felt the necessity at this point of tak- 
ing another glass of something stimulating. 

As little Reuben proceeded along through the dark 
street he was saying to himself : 

“ I’ll find my paw in Johnnie Looney’s tailoring 
shop playin’ checkers, an’ I’ll take him home to 
maw.” There was a ring of assurance in the child- 
ish voice that, under the circumstances, was truly 
pathetic. “ Poor maw,” he continued, “ home there 
cryin’ with the neuralagy. I won’t play checkers 
when I grow big ; I won’t take the drinks when I grow 


THE WOMEN INTERFERE 


149 


big. I’ll stay all the time at home with maw; wash 
the dishes fer her, mind the baby fer her, gather wood 
fer a fire — when she’s got the neuralagy. I’ll buy 
her dresses — lots, an’ peanuts, an’ bunnets, an’ rib- 
bons, an’ taffy, an’ flowers, an’ — an’ — an’ ” At 

this moment he stubbed his bare toe against a snag 
which he failed to see in the dark, fell heavily to the 
ground, and the sentence was never finished. 

The moon shone full, throwing a glamour over the 
fair hair and white pinched face of the child as he 
trudged along, and Mr. Vickers, looking out of his 
study window, just before retiring for the night, had 
seen him, and knowing pretty well his quest, felt him- 
self hoping that the artist was divinely inspired with 
a great truth who put into marble the idea that a 
guardian angel with brooding wings walked closely 
behind each little helpless child. 

Toward morning Alexander McBain had a dream, 
and in that dream Paddy Conley appeared to him, 
and with a bow of mock obsequiousness, such as he 
had practised while yet in the flesh, he told him that 
he had come to appoint him his successor. 

“ There must always be a village drunkard, you 
know,” said Paddy ; “ the country demands it. I 
have,” he added, with another low bow, waving his 
hands downward with his head, “ filled that position 


150 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


for many an 5 many a year; now whin I cannot hould 
it anny longer I make you my successor.” 

With this he took off his coat that had rolled the 
earth with his body many a time and put it on the 
younger man. Then he placed his battered old fur 
cap on his head, and saluting him as the “ village 
drunkard, good luck to you ! 99 he made another mock 
bow and disappeared. 

Clutching at his badges of position, the obnoxious 
coat and hat, in a wild effort to get rid of them, Alex- 
ander awoke. 

It was still dark, and reaching out his hands to the 
form nearest to him, he said, “ Bill, Bill, did you see 
anybody around? 99 

“ Anybody,” muttered Bill, “ anybody.” 

“ Did you see Paddy Conley? Was he here? ” said 
Alexander. 

“ Paddy Conley — he — ’s — in a better place than 
this — or worse,” sleepily answered Bill. 

In a short time streaks of dawn began to appear 
in the east. Alexander could sleep no more, and rising 
to his feet, he made his way to the outside door, un- 
bolted it and passed out. 

He was thoroughly aroused now and frightened. 
“ I’ll stop drinking ! ” he cried. “ I’ll give it up ! I 
can do it, I know I can ! I never intended to take so 


THE WOMEN INTERFERE 


151 


much — never intended to grow to like it ! I intended 
to grow to be a great man! I loved it once, now I 
hate it ! I’ll give it up ! I’ll give it up ! I’ll not be 
Paddy Conley’s successor! I’ll not be the village 
drunkard ! ” He stretched his right arm toward the 
heavens above him, and shook his clenched fist in 
defiance of something, he knew not what. 

At that moment a screech-owl in the top of one of 
the shade trees uttered his peculiar blood-curdling 
“ Who-o-o-o-o ” ; it seemed to Alexander the derisive 
laugh of a fiend, and he cowered almost to the ground 
beneath it, covering his face with his hands. He 
shambled on a few yards and dropped down on a 
bench; already the spirit of elation was leaving him, 
and somehow he knew he would not stop, could not 
pass by the tempting drink if it were possible for him 
to get it, and with the pale fading stars looking pity- 
ingly on, he wept. 

His dog, which had lain outside the Mapleton 
House all night waiting for him to come out, had fol- 
lowed him, and seeing his dejection, he lifted his long 
pointed muzzle toward heaven and uttered a piteous 
howl. 


XIII 


BILL TURNS PREACHER 

W HILE Alexander was staggering around 
the Monday following his night In the 
barroom, still under the influence of 
his debauch, he had various experiences. 

Mrs. Brady met him, and shying off several feet, 
she made a commiserating sound by striking her 
tongue against the roof of her mouth, which caused 
him drop his eyes and feel like throwing himself into 
the river. 

Peter McKim came across him, and thinking to 
make an example of him before the boys standing 
around, he extended his hand with an orthodox smile, 
and was about to utter a carefully prepared rep- 
rimand, when Alexander interrupted him, saying 
solemnly as he returned the handshake: 

66 A man may smile and smile, and be a villain.” 
Granny Neilson met him on a quiet back street, and 
going up to the swaying figure, she grasped his hand, 
which at that moment was more palsied than her own, 
and said : 


152 


BILL TURNS PREACHER 


153 


“ My son, th’ Faither is waitin’ yer return.” 

This made Alexander go away by himself into the 
cemetery and sit for fully an hour on one of the rustic 
benches, thinking, thinking — as seriously as his un- 
settled condition would allow. 

“ Return ”? What did Granny Neilson mean? 
Was it possible for him to retrace his steps? 

He remembered dimly hearing it told by one of the 
men in the barroom after whisky had made him 
loquacious, that Hiram Jenkins, a farmer who had 
often been seen staggering around the village, had 
“ gone for’ard at a Methodist revival,” and had never 
been seen to stagger afterward ; and he wondered in 
a helpless way whether the Methodist revival could do 
anything for him. 

His reflections were cut short by Bill Gilooly (it 
was a public holiday; Bill was free from the black- 
smith shop, and One-Armed Joe had gone off on the 
excursion), who sauntered in to the graveyard swing- 
ing a bottle by the neck. In a very short time the 
two of them were wandering off to a small wood skirt- 
ing the village. 

On reaching the wood they sat down in the shadow 
of a pine tree with the bottle between them, out of 
which they drank enough to make them communica- 
tive, but not enough to satisfy their craving. 


154 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

Bill was in a sullen mood, an unusual state of mind 
for him; growled something about being down in his 
luck, or born under an evil star. Turning to face 
him, Alexander said wisely: 

66 6 The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but 
in ourselves, that we are underlings. 5 55 

“ Shet up ! 55 said Bill, “ or talk some common senst 
a fellow kin understand! 55 

The tall, straight pine over their heads, the embodi- 
ment of rectitude, kept whispering its messages; the 
veined green banners of the surrounding maples flut- 
tered in the soft breeze, all the delicate scents of the 
woods and the wild flowers permeated the air, and 
from out the depths of a feathery willow a Canadian 
warbler’s joyous heart overflowed in countless little 
trills, but the young men were blind and deaf to all 
the sweet wooings of nature. 

When Alexander became so intoxicated as to forget 
his usual reticence, he confided to Bill his idea about 
going to the revival meeting. 

Bill, who had been lying down, raised himself on 
his elbow, showing some interest, and said: 

“ They’ll want ye to repent fust thing.” 

“ How-do-you-know? ” hiccoughed Alexander. 

“ Know? I’ve been to Methodis’ meetin’ an’ heerd 
’em. 


BILL TURNS PREACHER 


155 


“ 6 Whoever repents an’ forsakes every sin 5 !’ 5 he 
burst out, singing in such a loud, cracked voice that 
the chipmunks scurried into their holes, and the squir- 
rels as instantly took higher branches in the trees. 
“ I’ve heerd ’em sing that time an’ time agin,” he 
added, “ but I disremember the rest o’ the words now.” 

66 Well,” said Alexander in a thick, hesitating voice, 
“ I want to repent, — but — not half as much — as I 
want — a glass of whisky.” 

“ No use’n ye goin’ then,” said Bill, with the air of 
a parson. “ Ye’ve got to repent worse ner nothin’, 
or it ain’t no use.” 

“ They say — Hiram Jenkins — has all — the desire 
for — stimulant — taken away — from him,” stammered 
Alexander ; “ how is — that ? ” 

“ He repented,” returned Bill, “ in coorse he re- 
pented.” 

Alexander broke down in maudlin tears at the help- 
lessness of his case, while Bill burst into another 
stanza of the revival hymn, the words having come 
to his recollection. 

After that they both fell asleep. 

They had been asleep but a short time when Crazy 
Tim, the semi-idiot boy of the village, came wander- 
ing through the wood. A pair of Squire Murray’s 
cast-off knee boots, several sizes too large for the 


156 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


present wearer, were drawn up over his trouser legs ; 
a short smock, as much too small as the boots were too 
large, protected his shoulders and arms; his hands 
were thrust deep into his trousers pockets. Ke 
shambled from side to side as he walked, gazing up 
into the treetops, whistling disjointedly. At inter- 
vals he stopped the meaningless whistle and attempted 
to imitate the trill of a bird or the chitter of a 
squirrel. His pallid, usually expressionless face wore 
a placid look of semi-interest in the great nature 
world about him. Coming suddenly on Alexander 
and Bill asleep under the trees, he stopped abruptly. 
Tiptoeing slowly nearer, he gazed down at them sev- 
eral minutes in silence; then he began to gather off 
the ground great handfuls of old leaves and pine 
needles and spread them over the sleepers. When he 
had them pretty well covered up he went away mut- 
tering to himself : 

66 Well, the bears won’t git ’em now, all covered up. 
Can’t see ’em, bears can’t see ’em.” 

Somehow Tim had caught the impression that the 
two sleepers whom he had come upon must be “ the 
babes in the woods ” about whom his mother had told 
him so often, and he felt considerable satisfaction in 
leaving them covered with leaves, with which, accord- 
ing to the story, they should be covered. 


BILL TURNS PREACHER 


157 


Having completed his work, he shambled off toward 
home. Meeting his mother on the way in company 
with the Village Helper, he went up to her and 
said: 

u Maw, I found the babes in the woods out yonder, 
an 5 covered them with leaves.” 

“What does the boy mean? ” inquired the Village 
Helper. 

“ Och, it’s them two good-fur-nothin’s, Sandy Mc- 
Bain an’ Bill Gilooly, the dear child has found,” said 
his mother. “ They’re both drinkin’, of course, this 
bein’ a holiday — layin’ dead drunk out there, like 
enough. You’ll never drink, will ye, Tim? ” said the 
mother, addressing her son. 

“ No, ma’am,” said Tim, “ I won’t drink.” 

“ He won’t es long es he ain’t got the money,” 
said the Village Helper, “ you may be sure o’ that ; 
Joe Pepper ’ll give nothin’ without the money.” 

Bill Gilooly was the first of the sleepers in the 
woods to wake, and feeling in his pocket for his jew’s- 
harp, and not finding it, he became restless, struggled 
to his feet, and wandered toward home. 

Arriving there he fumbled under the doormat, drew 
out a key, and dropping on his knees in front of a 
cracked unpainted door, he endeavoured in vain to put 
it in the keyhole. 


158 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


McClosky’s boy, who happened to be passing, 
called in, “ What are ye huntin’ fur, Bill? ” 

“ Huntin’ fur,” returned Bill in a muddy voice, 
“ I’m huntin’ fur nothin’, but this blamed keyhole 
keeps runnin’ ’round so fast I can’t ketch it. 

“ Who be you ? ” he inquired, turning around, as it 
was now quite dusk, to look at his questioner. 

“ I be Bill Gilooly,” said McClosky’s boy, seeing 
a chance for some fun. 

Bill stared at him a moment in blank astonishment 
before he said slowly: 

“ Then who in thunder be I ? ” 

The good nature of McClosky’s boy got the better 
of his desire for further fun, and going up to Bill, 
he took the key from his fumbling fingers, opened the 
door, and pushed him inside the house. 


XIV 


DEVIOUS WAYS 

S OME time after Bill had left, Alexander awoke 
from his sleep; his bones ached, and the damp- 
ness of the dew had penetrated every part of 
his enfeebled frame. Looking up, he saw the stars, 
and feeling about him he discovered that Bill had 
gone. His dog was licking his hand, and there was 
something in the unmerited devotion that hurt him ; 
so pushing the faithful creature aside he struggled 
to his feet and started off toward the village. 

There was a treat going the rounds when he en- 
tered Joe Pepper’s tavern, and he got one glass of 
whisky. In his weak condition this affected him 
seriously, but seeing no immediate chance of another 
he wandered out on the street again. Chancing to 
pass the Methodist church, he heard singing : 

“‘Whiter than snow, yes, whiter than snow, 

Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.’ ” 

The words and music floated out to the poor in- 
ebriate, and he stopped. “ Wash me — white,” he 
159 


160 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


stammered, looking down at his soiled hands and 
clothes. “ I need to be washed, sure enough.” The 
last glass of whisky had made him brave, and open- 
ing the church door he walked in. 

Something made him think of Hiram Jenkins, and 
without any invitation he went forward to the front 
of the church, and knelt down at the altar, burying 
his face in his hands on the rail. 

The congregation were thunderstruck ; they all 
knew him, and a strange hush fell on the hitherto 
demonstrative meeting. 

When he had knelt a few seconds in silence, he rose 
to his feet, and turning to face the people, he said: 

“Ladies and Gentlemen — I rise to inform you 
that I have renounced the intoxicating cup, with all 
the evils that follow in its train.” 

Then raising his right arm, he continued in a 
declamatory tone: 

“ ‘ There is a tide in the affairs of men 

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; 
Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
Is bound in shallows and in misery.’” 

The orator at that moment presented rather a 
striking appearance ; he held his hat in his hand, and 
his short dishevelled hair stood up in all directions; 


DEVIOUS WAYS 


161 


the pine needles among which he had been lying in 
the wood had stuck plentifully into his woollen clothes 
and bristled like so many porcupine quills. 

“ Poor fellow!” whispered the women, while the 
tears rolled down the cheeks of more than one mother 
of boys. 

The men, who knew that he was under the influence 
of Joe Pepper’s whisky at that moment, regarded 
him with troubled countenances, longing in the depths 
of their hearts for the old-time power which enabled 
the disciples to cast out devils and do many wonder- 
ful works. 

Immediately after making his declaration, the 
object of so much solicitude left the church, and look- 
ing furtively around to see that no one was watching 
him, he shambled over the space of ground lying 
between the church and the tavern, and entered 
through the back door into Joe Pepper’s barroom. 

His dog, which had been waiting around for him 
outside the church, seemed to understand that there 
was no use of waiting any longer when he went into 
the tavern, and he trotted home. 

Creeping stealthily up to the counter as if he 
still felt that someone was watching him, Alexander 
wheedlingly said to the proprietor: 

“ Give us a drink, Joe.” 


162 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


Something in his tone and manner informed the 
man of experience behind the bar that Alexander had 
no money to offer for what he was asking, so he re- 
plied with great firmness : 

“ Can’t do it.” 

Alexander eyed the bottles on the shelf hungrily, 
then glancing down at his threadbare coat, and grasp- 
ing it with both his hands, as if he were about to take 
it off his person, he said, “ Have this for one glass? ” 

“ Naw, no old clo’es wanted here,” returned the 
important dispenser of strong drink. 

Alexander looked down at his boots, beginning to 
break. 

“ Naw, too seedy.” 

Then the suppliant stood bewildered, and the pro- 
prietor of the Mapleton House saw his opportunity. 

“ I say ! ” he exclaimed suddenly, “ you split up 
that pile of kitchen wood in the backyard an’ I’ll 
give ye a glass.” 

The proposition was instantly accepted, and in a 
few moments Alexander McBain, “ graduated in Arts 
at Toronto University ” as the people of the village 
had once been proud to tell, was splitting wood for 
the tavern kitchen by the light of a lantern, while Joe 
Pepper, “ Licensed to sell wine , beer and spirituous 
liquors” as the sign over his door declared, was lean- 


DEVIOUS WAYS 


163 


ing against the doorjamb watching him; and the maid 
of all work peered at the whole scene through a slit 
in the paper blind of the kitchen window in open- 
mouthed wonder. 

As it happened, the Village Helper was in the tavern 
waiting on the wife of the proprietor — the poor 
woman’s many infirmities made frequent demands on 
the kindness of her stronger sister — and through an 
opening in the floor intended for a stovepipe over- 
heard every word of what transpired in the barroom. 

Clapping the mustard plasters she was preparing 
to the small of her patient’s back, she was downstairs 
before Alexander had split three sticks of wood. 

“ Here, Joe Pepper,” she said with the voice of one 
accustomed to being obeyed, “ that’s too one-sided a 
bargain — that pile o’ wood is wuth a gallon o’ 
whisky 

“ Come, Alexander, you ain’t goin’ to work for 
nothin’,” and seizing the young man by the arm she 
led him out into the street. 

“ Go right home to your ma, Alexander,” she con- 
tinued, “ an’ git her to make you a cup o’ coffee — 
it’s her as knows how to make one — it’ll take the 
hankerin’ out o’ you fur whisky. Go now!” she 
commanded, stamping her foot, and giving him a 
push as Alexander hesitated. 


164 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

She stood on the street and watched him until he 
had nearly reached his mother’s door ; he had to turn 
a corner just before doing so, and as soon as he had 
made that turn the Village Helper thought him safe, 
and strode off to see Connie Hallam, who was 46 down 
with the croup.” 

Alexander was just in the cunning stage of intoxi- 
cation, and glancing furtively through a space be- 
tween the buildings, he discovered that his would-be 
protector had gone in another direction. The craze 
for whisky was strong upon him, and turning, he 
ran with the frenzy of a madman back toward the 
tavern. 

The village streets were quiet, as it was past the 
post office hour, and the meeting in the church was 
not yet out. No sound was audible but that of Alex- 
ander’s feet as they struck the ground. No face was 
visible but the white spirituelle face of Granny Neil- 
son pressed close to the window watching for the 
people who were to come from meeting. Granny saw 
the running figure without recognising that it was 
a son of the village, and said to herself, 44 Ay, some- 
body’s in a hurry.” Then as she drew back from the 
window, and readjusted the white muslin curtains, she 
whispered to herself absently, 44 4 He that believeth 
shall not make haste.’ ” 


DEVIOUS WAYS 


165 


Alexander rushed to the door and again begged 
for a drink. The tavernkeeper silently pointed to 
the pile of wood, and the young man crept like a 
whipped cur out through the door, picked up the axe 
and split half a cord of wood for one glass of whisky. 

That glass, as can readily be imagined, whetted 
rather than satisfied his craving; he retired to bed, 
his last thought about whisky, and as a consequence 
he awoke with it as his first thought in the morning. 
He arose early and procured his mother’s little worn 
passbook, which all through the years had lain on the 
clock shelf in the kitchen, and looking it through he 
learned that some of the women in the village were ow- 
ing her small amounts. He took the book to his room, 
and while his mother was cooking breakfast, doing her 
best to have it appetising for his sake, he carefully 
wrote out each account. Immediately after his break- 
fast he dressed himself with unusual care, blacked 
his boots, his mother looking on in pleased surprise, 
thinking, hoping that these might be the first signs 
of improvement, and went out through the village 
collecting the accounts in his mother’s name. 

The women, greatly pleased by his improved ap- 
pearance, said to themselves, “ The Widow McBain’s 
boy is doin’ better,” smiled encouragingly on him, 
and without hesitation paid their accounts. 


166 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

The Village Helper, chancing to be in the last house 
in which he received money, “ suspicioned ” that all 
was not right. She said nothing; it was too late 
then, but determined to watch proceedings. 

She followed Alexander out of the house; it was 
then near noon, and saw that he went directly to the 
Mapleton House. She was unable to continue her 
watch just then, as she was on the way to change the 
linseed poultice she had placed on Connie Hallam’s 
chest, and she had an afternoon’s work ahead of her 
with other patients; so she deputised Mrs. Brady, 
whose house commanded a good view of the tavern, 
to keep an eye on the young man. 

“ He’ll be on a big tear this time,” she said. 
“Ready money hasn’t to wait fer treats; an’ he’ll 
need lookin’ after right smart.” 

Mrs. Brady, who sat all afternoon at the win- 
dow, glancing alternately at a sock she was knitting 
— she had selected that kind of work as needing little 
attention — and at the tavern door, saw Alexander 
come out about dusk and wander off toward the coun- 
try. He had reached the state of his intoxication 
where he felt like hiding himself. Usually when in 
this mood he went off toward the country, or some 
quiet corner where he could stay until he had regained 
his equilibrium. This did very well in warm weather, 


DEVIOUS WAYS 167 

but in late October was considerable of a risk to 
health. 

On this occasion he had wandered out half a mile, 
when stumbling against something, some small object 
in his path, he fell down on the ground, and stayed 
where he fell. 

In a short time his dog, which had been looking for 
him everywhere, found him, and settling down on his 
haunches, he looked pityingly and helplessly at his 
master, and waited. 

After a while Alexander became conscious of a 
warm tongue licking his face, and he roused suffi- 
ciently to mutter, “ I can’t be such a bad fellow — 
Trusty likes me yet.” 


XV 


THE VILLAGE HELPER UNDERTAKES 

I T was an hour later that the Village Helper 
found Alexander seated in a ditch talking to 
himself. She paused a moment or two to listen, 
and heard: 

“ ‘ Of comfort no man speaks ; 

Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; 

Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes 
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.’” 

“ Talkin’ that trash po’try agen ! ” said the Vil- 
lage Helper, picking her way down the slippery bank. 

Alexander heard the voice, and raised his bleared 
eyes to hers and continued: 

“‘Let’s choose executors, and talk of wills; 

And yet not so; for what can we bequeath, 

Save our deposed bodies to the ground? 

Our lands, our lives, our all are Bolingbroke’s 
And nothing can we call our own but death, 

And that small model of the barren earth 
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.’ ” 

168 


VILLAGE HELPER UNDERTAKES 169 


“ Git up an 5 come home with ye,” she said, taking 
the inebriate by the arm and giving him a shake. 
“ Yer poor mother is up there, I ’spose, settin’ with a 
lighted candle watchin’ fer ye — smilin’ all the time, 
like enough, too ! ” 

By main force she drew him to his feet. “ An’ 
that’s what ye collected the money fer,” she added 
with another shake. Then folding her fingers around 
his arm with a grip of steel, she seemed to electrify 
him with power to walk; and leading him down to 
where the side of the ditch was less steep, she helped 
him into the road, and with her firm grip still upon 
his arm they started toward his home. 

It was a dreary muddy walk ; the wind sighed and 
shrieked like a lost spirit, or a world of lost spirits 
giving expression to their agonies of remorse; the 
trees beat their breasts with their long, bare arms; 
the moon had hidden her face behind a cloud, and an 
occasional star blinked as if ashamed to look down 
with steady gaze on fallen humanity. 

They trudged along in silence for some distance, 
the strong woman and the weak man ; then, as if not 
able to contain herself any longer, the Village Helper 
said, while her grip tightened on his arm : 

“ Law, but it’s nothin’ but adversity yer mother 
hes seen ever sence she sot eyes on ye ! ” 


170 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


“Sweet — are the — uses — of adversity, 

Which — like the — toad — ugly — and — venomous, 

Wears yet a — precious — jewel in his — head,” 

muttered the Shakespearian scholar. 

Arriving at Alexander’s home, the Village Helper 
without ceremony opened the door a few inches and 
saw the Widow in the dimly lighted sitting-room 
seated in her rocker. Holding her charge at arm’s 
length, the woman outside the door thrust her head 
far enough within to say: 

“ I’m bringin’ Alexander home, Mrs. McBain ; he’s 
a bit muddy from a fall he got — but nothin’ to speak 
of — nothin’ whatsoever,” she added as the Widow 
jumped to her feet. 

“ Just set down, set down,” she continued in her 
masterful, managing tones, coming in, leading the 
poor mud-bespattered dejected creature with one 
hand, while with the other she pushed the Widow back 
into her chair. 

“ I’ll ’tend to this boy. It ’tain’t the fust time I 
did it nuther — mind the doses of catnip I give him 
when he warn’t more’n a fut long? ” 

While talking she was conducting the boy across 
the sitting-room to the foot of the stairs. 

Having succeeded in getting him upstairs and into 
his room, she led him to the bed, pulled off his coat 


VILLAGE HELPER UNDERTAKES 171 

and boots, raised the battered felt hat from his head, 
and gave him an energetic push back among the 
pillows. 

His face was red and bloated, and spattered over 
with mud ; his hair, the curls of which his mother used 
to brush around her finger with unspeakable joy and 
tenderness when they were pale gold in colour, and 
silk floss in texture, was now a coarse tousled mass, 
the mud which was tangled in it smirching the fair 
bed which the Widow prided herself on keeping in a 
state of immaculate whiteness. The contrast be- 
tween the purity of the bed and its occupant touched 
even the sensibilities of the Village Helper, who was 
a woman of many experiences, and therefore not 
easily moved, and she muttered: 

“ Purty creeture you air to lay in a pure white bed 
— must feel somethin’ like the 01’ Chap ef he could 
get by mistake into heaven.” 

The word heaven seemed to arouse some dormant 
recollection in Alexander’s mind of his college days, 
and raising himself on his elbow, he recited in a broken 
declamatory voice, with little halts between the words : 

“I sent my — soul — through the — invisible, 

Some letters of that — after — life to spell: 

And by and by — my soul — returned — to me, 

And answered — I myself — am Heaven — and Hell.” 


172 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


“ Sure enough you have been — to your poor 
mother,” said the Village Helper, again pushing him 
back among the pillows. Then taking the lamp in 
her hand she passed out of the room. 

“ He’ll not git out o’ there till he knows what he’s 
doin’,” she soliloquised, turning the key in the lock. 

She went downstairs, and without making any 
remark to the Widow, who sat rocking herself to and 
fro in her chair, she passed in to the kitchen and put 
a couple of dipperfuls of water into the kettle which 
stood on the range. 

When the water had boiled she made coffee. Then 
going to the sideboard she brought forth a cup and 
saucer belonging to the Widow’s best china set, and 
one of her triple-plated spoons, kept for state occa- 
sions — “ for who,” says she to herself, “ has a right 
to the best if not that poor woman.” Finding the 
pint of milk which the Widow had procured from the 
milkman early in the evening and had placed away in 
a flat dish to gather cream for Alexander’s breakfast, 
she carefully skimmed the cream into the china cup. 
Then she poured in the coffee, the fragrance of which 
by this time permeated the small house, put in the 
spoonful of sugar, and placing the cup on a tray she 
carried it up and presented it to the protesting, smil- 
ing woman. 


VILLAGE HELPER UNDERTAKES 173 


Returning to the kitchen, she poured out a second 
cupful of coffee, this time using one of the Widow’s 
everyday cups, selected one of the everyday tea- 
spoons, then carrying this cup into the sitting-room, 
she sat down to drink its contents. 

In half an hour Alexander had fallen asleep, as 
the Village Helper learned when she came before 
going home to take another look at him. 

“ He’ll probably be dry in the mornin’ an’ want 
another glass,” she said to herself, there being no 
one else around to whom she could give such free 
expression of her thoughts, “ so I’ll turn the key in 
the lock agin.” 

While she was standing there Alexander stirred 
and muttered thickly, “ As — the — hart — panteth — 
af ter — the — water — brooks — , so — panteth — my — 

soul after ” He stopped short as though sleep 

had overcome him. 

“ He’s talkin’ Bible words,” whispered the Village 
Helper. 

She regarded him a few moments, her mouth tight- 
ening at the corners, and a curious look creeping into 
her grey eyes, “ They didn’t take much holt on him 
she continued ; “ I reckon too many tares crowded 
out the good seed,” she added, after another short 
silence. 


174 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

Then, leaving the room she locked the door and 
went downstairs. 

“ You never pay no attention to Alexander, Mrs. 
McBain,” she said, when she reached the sitting-room 
again ; “ I’ll see ter him till he regains his usual 
health. Jest leave him ter me, an* go ter yer bed; 
it’s on’y one o’ his — illnesses. 

“ I’ll be ’round in the momin’ an’ get him a bit o’ 
breakfast,” she added as she was going out the door, 
“ I’m used to cookin’ for — the sick.” 

The Village Helper then hurried off to make an- 
other visit to the wife of Joe Pepper. She had to 
pass Granny Neilson’s home on her way, and she said 
to herself : 

“ I’ll go in’ an’ tell her about Alexander’s verse ; 
that’ll tickle the old lady; she sets great store by 
Bible verses.” 

“ Aye, aye,” said Granny Neilson softly, drawling 
out the words, when she heard the Village Helper’s 
story, “ as th’ sea-shell to th’ listenin’ ear keeps 
mournin’ for the sea, so th’ human heart keeps 
mournin’ for oneness wi’ its Source — but,” she added, 
after a short pause, “ it’s on’y now an’ then a human 
ear gets close enough th’ heart to hear its plaint.” 

As soon as the Widow was sure that the Village 
Helper had gone, the smile, which her neighbours 


VILLAGE HELPER UNDERTAKES 175 


thought she wore constantly, dropped from her lips. 
She rose hastily, and with lamp in hand crept quickly 
upstairs. Unlocking Alexander’s door she entered 
the room, placed the lamp on a table, and stood at 
the foot of the bed looking down on the sorry-looking 
figure there. 

The noise of her entrance disturbed Alexander, 
and again he brokenly muttered, “ As — the — hart — 

panteth — after — the waterbrooks — so panteth ” 

“ One of his Sunday school verses ! ” cried his 
mother, throwing up her hands. 

Then reaching her arms out over the bed she cried 
a lonely, piercing cry, “ My little boy ! My little 
boy! Where have you gone? 99 

A slight quiver in the form on the bed was the 
only response, and in a few moments the Widow 
turned and crept wearily downstairs. 


XVI 


WHAT SOME OF THE VILLAGERS 
THOUGHT 

I T was shortly after this experience of Alex- 
ander’s that a number of the women and Peter 
McKim, who had accidentally met in one room, 
talked over Alexander’s sad career, and gave their 
opinions as to the cause and cure. 

“ Ef the poor laddie could only hev had Maggie 
by his side all the time,” said the romantic Mrs. 
McTavish, “ she’d ’a’ kep’ him straight. Love is th’ 
one powerful thing to exorcise evil spirits. A lassie 
is a powerful brake for keepin’ a lad fra runnin’ at 
too great a speed.” 

“ I think,” said Mrs. Brady, “ that it’s too much 
learnin’ that’s the matter with Alexander — all this 
here Latin and Greek seems to kind av make ’em 
weak and puny — no backbone in ’em, nor nerves to 
speak av. Now there’s Bill Gilooly, he’s nowheres 
at all as bad es Alexander after the whisky, an’ niver 
a word av Latin or Greek knows he. Sure an’ ain’t 
it one of the great poets himself that says too much 
176 


WHAT SOME VILLAGERS THOUGHT 177 


learnin’ is a dangerous thing, an’ that’s my mind 
about it, too.” 

“ It’s work he needs ! ” broke in Peter McKim 
vehemently ; “ ef the Widow McBain hed put that 
boy to airn his livin’ when he wuz — mebbe fifteen or 
sixteen, there’d be none o’ this here caperin’. No, 
no, it’s work what takes the caperin’ out o’ these 
lads ahead o’ anythin’.” 

“ The stuff ought to be put out of the village and 
country entirely, then there’d be no temptation in 
the way o’ young men,” said a “ teetotle woman,” who 
had recently come to make her home among us in 
the village, and did not know our views. 

But Peter McKim blustered out so fiercely about 
“ Anglo-Saxon liberty ” and “ human rights with 
which no one has any bizness to interfere,” that the 
little newcomer fairly wilted in her chair, and never 
dared open her mouth to say another word. 

Even one of our own women muttered that be- 
cause some misused a privilege she did not think others 
ought to be made to suffer for it. 

“ What would we do in case o’ sickness — collery, 
for instance?” said Mrs. McTavish. “ Or some- 
one might be took sudden wi’ a colic, or get a 
chill? ” 

“ Or in case o’ a barn-raisin’ or a heavy harvest? ” 


178 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

said another woman, who had been brought up on a 
farm. 

“ New Year’s an’ weddin’s would be poor affairs 
without th’ bit cheer,” added a fourth. 

The villagers recognised that there were three 
classes — drunkards, drinkers, and abstainers. The 
first and the last class they regarded with about equal 
contempt. 

Peter McKim left soon after this ; he never stayed 
long in one place — all the village needed looking 
after, more or less, and as he walked away he said 
to himself — Peter said things to himself he would not 
dare to say to other people: 

“ Why should I deny myself my comfortin’ little 
glass to please other people? I kin take alcohol in 
moderation, an’ it does me no harm; an’ I kin go 
to prayer-meetin’ after my temperate glass, an’ I’m 
within my Christian liberty in doin’ so. All that God 
has made is good. . . . Guilty o’ the blood o’ 

souls,” he added crabbedly, as if repeating words he 
had heard; “ if meat make my brother to offend I will 
eat no meat as long as the world lasts. Phoo ! some 
people are always goin’ to extremes ! ” 

After Peter had left the women continued to 
talk. 

46 Boys is terrible hard to bring up,” sighed a 


WHAT SOME VILLAGERS THOUGHT 179 


hitherto silent member of the party ; “ but I ’spose 
if we start ’em off right we’ve done all we can.” 

“ What’s the use in baptisin’ ’em, an’ ’noculatin’ 
’em, an’ bringin’ ’em through teethin’, an’ mumps, 
an’ measles, an’ whoopin’ cough ef whisky is goin’ 
to carry ’em off in the end? ” said Mrs. Brady. 

“ Strange,” said another woman, “ with the Metho- 
dists, an’ Baptists — an’ some o’ the Presbyterians an’ 
’Piscopals, prayin’ all the time that the drink habit 
may be put down, that still it goes on an’ grows.” 

“ That reminds me,” said Mrs. McTavish, who 
was given to reminiscences, “ o’ my pet lamb, which 
I had when a wee girl on the farm. It was a sickly 
bit thing an’ everyone said it wouldna live. I mind 
the night I carried it into the house lyin’ in my 
arms as helpless as a young babe. I left it by the 
kitchen fire when I went off to ma bed, stretched on 
a piece o’ old blanket. I was all happed up snug 
an’ warm, wi’ the bedclothes over ma head, when, all 
at once, I remembered that I had forgotten to pray 
for ma lamb. An’ that minute I hop-ped out on th’ 
floor, an’ kneelin’ down I prayed that ma lamb might 
live. But just as I rose from ma knees I betho’t 
me to gi’e it some milk ; so I slipp-et doon the stairs, 
warmed some milk, an’ gave th’ lamb a few spoon- 
fuls. Th’ wee, white thing was very much stronger 


180 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


in th’ mornin’, an’ continued to get stronger every 
hour ; an’ I tho’t then it was all owin’ to ma prayers, 
but I think now that it was owin’ to th’ milk — of 
course I might not have tho’t o’ th’ milk if it waur 
no’ for th’ prayer,” she added. 

“ An’ yer thinkin’ the churches are takin’ it all 
out in prayin’? ” said the first woman. 

“ Ma prayer without th’ drop o’ warm milk would 
hae meant a dead lamb, I’m convinced o’ that,” re- 
turned Mrs. McTavish sententiously. 

At this juncture Peter McKim came back for his 
walking stick, which he had forgotten, and when the 
women had helped him find it they dispersed toward 
their several homes. 

But Mrs. Brady, bursting with a desire to tell 
somebody all that had been said, dropped in on her 
way home to see Granny Neilson. 

Granny, seated in her small armless rocking-chair 
with her knitting in her tremulous but capable old 
hands, made a picture an artist might hunger to 
immortalise; her soft black merino dress fell in 
soft folds around the shrunken little figure, while 
the white muslin cap with its full border, which had 
been fixed into many a pretty little pucker on the 
old-fashioned “ sad iron,” formed an aureola for 
the snow-white hair, and the sort of veiled glory of 


WHAT SOME VILLAGERS THOUGHT 181 


her holy face. One looking at her might understand 
as never before, perhaps, the possibility of a bodily 
frame becoming a “ spiritual body.” Even Mrs. 
Brady, not giving much to reflections of a spiritual 
character, remembered dimly reading, or hearing at 
funeral services, the words, “ shall change the body 
of our humiliation that it may be fashioned like 
unto the body of his glory ” ; and somehow she 
leaped to the thought that the change might begin 
right here in the material clay and among the dis- 
tracting things of earth. 

Mrs. Brady told her story about what they all had 
said regarding Alexander’s failing, and what each 
one had proposed as a cure. 

“ Ah, ah,” responded Granny Neilson, “ it’s life 
the puir laddie wants, life .” 

“ Faith, an’ it’s too much life I’m thinkin’ the lad 
has,” returned Mrs. Brady ; “ did ye hear o’ the 
window-smashin’ an’ chair-breakin’ t’ other night at 
J oe Pepper’s ? ” 

Granny seemed not to have heard her question; 
she was saying softly, as if to her heart, “ He that 
hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the 
Son of God hath not life." She had the same ex- 
pression on her face that Mrs. McTavish had seen 
when she remarked, “ One feels that it is th’ face o’ 


182 ALEXANDER McBAlN, B. A. 

a wumman who has looked upon th’ great things 
o’ God.” 

“ Oh, it’s religion she be thinkin’ av,” Mrs. Brady 
said to herself, looking curiously at the older woman, 
who had laid the white stocking she had been 
knitting down into her lap, and was gazing into 
space. 

“ I’m reminded,” continued Granny, after a short 
silence, “ of a story I heard once of a rich man who 
bought a picture o’ th’ infant Christ surrounded 
by a company of angels ; a picture painted by some 
one o’ these great artists. When he got th’ picture 
home an’ went looking closely at it he saw that the 
Christ head painted by the great artist had been cut 
out an’ a false head put in. The rich man searched 
th’ world over till he found the true Christ head and 
put it in. Th’ picture now hangs in some great art 
gallery an’ is called 6 The Restored Christ.’ So I’m 
thinking’ th’ world is busy cuttin’ Christ, th’ creator 
of life, out, an’ puttin’ somethin’ else, somethin’ false, 
in his place. Ah, we must hae th’ restored Christ 
before we can hae ony real life.” 

Mrs. Brady left soon after that, and Granny still 
held her knitting in her lap and continued to whisper ; 
and these were the words she was saying : 

“ O God, Thine aged handmaiden will not cease 


WHAT SOME VILLAGERS THOUGHT 183 


from this day until Thou callest her to higher work, 
to pray that th’ Widow’s son may find life.” 

The evening of the same day the Rev. Nathaniel 
Vickers sat in his study preparing a sermon for the 
following Sunday on Christ’s first miracle in Cana 
of Galilee. 

“ Brethren,” he wrote in conclusion, “ to change the 
water of our ordinary life into wine, the insipid and 
common into the uncommon and holy is still Christ’s 
prerogative. He who can change water into wine 

can transform a character — change a life ” Here 

he stopped suddenly, with the pen poised over the 
manuscript; something had brought to the plane 
of his consciousness the story he had heard that 
afternoon about Alexander McBain’s continued down- 
going. He thought for a few minutes, then, drop- 
ping the pen on the table, he fell on his knees before 
his large armchair, and, in an agony of spirit, 
prayed : 

“ O Lord God, am I labouring for naught in this 
village? How have I failed — how have I failed, O 
God, to present Thee as the great miracle worker to 
the people — to the young men bound hand and foot 
in the shackles of sin? The young man, Alexander, 
I presented him to Thee in baptism while he was yet 


184 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


an infant, was it all in vain, O God? Why am I not 
now able to direct him — to compel him to come to the 
great miracle worker — the great transformer of 
human character — the great eradicator of inbred 
wrong? O God! — O God! — why have I failed? 
There are churches here — there are sermons preached 
here continually — still our young men are hastening 
— hastening to destruction ! ” 

He knelt long in a sort of silent agony, which 
continued until there was borne in on him the thought, 
that not until the prodigal was forced to eat of the 
husks upon which the swine did feed, was he even 
willing to turn his face toward the father’s house. 


XVII 


THE HUSH IN THE VILLAGE 

T HERE came a time when Alexander was 
completely out of money, and consequently 
sober for a much longer period than usual. 
His mother noticed this and the strained smile was 
fading from her face. The villagers noticed it and 
remarked to each other, “ The lad is seein 5 the evil 
o’ his ways.” 

This good behaviour had continued even into 
months, when one night he came home and went up 
to his room earlier than usual. His mother went to 
her bed feeling secure and happy. When the small 
house was wrapped in silence Alexander tiptoed 
downstair. Craftily opening the door of the little 
parlour he entered and began to feel his way along 
the wall of the dark room until his hands touched the 
bracket between the windows on which rested the 
the silver bowl, the invaluable family heirloom, and the 
pair of little red shoes, which the mother hand had 
placed there and kept in dainty cleanliness all through 
the years. With feverish haste he picked up the 
185 


186 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


shoes and dropped them into his pocket, then seizing 
the silver bowl he concealed it under his coat and 
quickly left the house. 

In the morning the mother had no response to her 
call to breakfast, and, going up to Alexander’s room, 
she discovered that he had not slept in his bed. 
Shortly after she learned that the silver bowl and 
little red shoes were gone. 

As if by a lightning stroke the smile was stricken 
from her face, never to return 

Search was made for Alexander by Mrs. McTavish, 
the Village Helper, and some more kind neighbours, 
in Joe Pepper’s barroom, in Johnnie Looney’s tailor- 
ing shop, in the blacksmith and cooper shops, in the 
bams and outbuildings of the village, in the small 
belt of wood where he was known to resort. Bill 
Gilooly, One-Armed Joe, and others with whom he 
was in the habit of associating were inquired of, but 
no one seemed to know anything about his where- 
abouts. It was learned in the end that he had been 
seen about midnight boarding a train that took a 
long journey toward the west. His dog was linger- 
ing around the station house sniffing and searching 
everywhere, and could not be persuaded to leave it, 
which confirmed the statement that had been made by 
One-Armed Joe’s little Reuben, who had been out 


THE HUSH IN THE VILLAGE 187 


about midnight looking for his father, that Alexander 
had gone off on a train. 

Before night of that first day it was known gen- 
erally in the village that Alexander was gone, and 
the story of the missing bowl and shoes was known to 
a few confidential friends. 

“ The sin of the father is hurled down on the head 
of the son, and on the heart of the mother — per- 
haps that of another woman,” said Mr. Vickers to 
himself, when the sad story was told him. Late that 
night he walked his study floor groaning in spirit, 
sorely tried in faith. Again and again he asked him- 
self was he preaching in vain, was a mother’s love 
in vain; were there cases — deep-rooted, hereditary 
sins — that lay beyond the pale of redemption? 

“ Are you ill, Nathaniel?” inquired Mrs. Vick- 
ers, opening the study door at a late hour ; “ you 
seem so restless. You have walked this floor for an 
hour without ceasing.” 

“ No, dear, not ill,” returned the minister, won- 
dering whether he was telling the exact truth, and 
whether there were not diseases of the spirit as well 
as of the body. Feeling, too, that “ not e’en the 
tenderest heart, and next our own, knows half the 
reason why we smile or sigh.” 

“ An’ that’s all a woman’s love weighs wi’ a man 


188 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


when it comes in conflict wi’ his appetites ! ” cried 
Mrs. McTavish distractedly. “ Ah, th* poor mother ! 
an 5 th* young thing, Maggie ! ” 

66 Th’ prodigal wanders farther from home,” whis- 
pered Granny Neilson, and her lips continued to 
whisper, but what she was saying was not heard by 
human ears. 

M I have no sympathy at all with those drinkin’ 
fellows,” said Peter McKim; “ they could stop if 
they wanted to.” 

The next evening the minister was in his study 
still troubling over the case of the lad, Alexander. 
Involuntarily he picked up a sermon which had been 
preached by one of his contemporaries, and read the 
text : “ But I tell you of a truth , many widows were in 
Israel in the days of Elias , when the heaven was shut 
up three years and six months , when great famine 
was throughout all the land. But unto none of them 
was Elias sent , save unto Serepta , a city of Sidon, 
unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers 
were in Israel in the time of Eliseus, the prophet; 
and none of them was cleansed save Naaman , the 
Syrian” Then he began to read the sermon which 
followed: 


“ We watch Christ as the sick gather around Him 


THE HUSH IN THE VILLAGE 189 


on some happy, evening hour, or as the ten lepers 
cry to Him from afar, or as the blind man breaks in 
upon Him with a clamour, which will not be denied, 
or as the bearers of some poor paralytic force their 
way through the roof to secure His comfortable 
touch. Blessed indeed to set free the redemptive 
energies of God for the sick and the sorrowful. But 
why should the area covered be so small? If this 
much is possible, why not much more? If the few can 
be healed, why not the many? Here in my text we 
see our Lord thinking of those who never drew near, 
of those who would not press in. Time after time 
He must have passed a blind man sitting by the way- 
side, who never met Him by any cry, * J esus , Thou 
Son of David , have mercy upon me / But if he would 
not cry the Lord must pass on unarrested, uninvoked. 
Ten lepers have lifted up their voice, but what of 
those others who went shuddering past, shut up in 
their own misery, without eyes to see what might 
save, without the awakening of any hope that might 
cry for help? What of the sick who moped in sullen 
gloom, and never put out a hand to touch the hem of 
His garment? Surely He was only waiting to give 
them this opportunity. Surely the pent-up pity 
was ready to leap out at a touch. Surely His heart 
burned within Him as he looked upon them. Why will 


190 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

not they speak? Why cannot they understand? And 
yet if they will not He must pass on and do nothing. 
He could not do any mighty works there because of 
their unbelief. The power is there by their side, in 
their midst, and yet idle because uninvited. And 
the worst is, as our Lord notes, it is among his own 
peculiar people, in His own house that this misad- 
venture is at its height. It is those who know Him 
best who call upon Him least ; it is they to whom He 
has been familiar from childhood who are unable to 
make use of His compassions. Familiarity itself has 
blinded them. Elsewhere, in strange places, among 
outlying heathen, He wins recognition. Out there in 
Syrophoenicia He cannot be hid even if He could. Out 
there in the wild hills beyond the lake He is followed 
by heathen crowds, when He had fled away to be in 
secret. They pursue Him with their sick even when 
He has set himself to escape. It is only at home, 
at Nazareth, where He had lived as a neighbour, that 
He failed to win His way. He is honoured as a 
prophet everywhere, anywhere, except among His 
own people and in His Father’s house.” 

The minister dropped the sermon and bowed his 
head, crying, “ Lord, Lord, I am admitted through 
my suffering into fellowship with Thee in Thy suf- 


THE HUSH IN THE VILLAGE 191 


fering ; unto the heart of Thy bitterest sorrow. Al- 
ways the privileged has missed what the outcast has 
discovered.” 

The same evening Squire Murray and his wife 
were talking over the event with which the whole 
village was ringing. 

They were seated together in their cosey sitting- 
room; the perfume of hyacinths filled the room, and 
a soft, warm light from a shaded lamp fell over the 
Squire’s newspaper, which he was not reading. 

“ I cannot get over it,” Mrs. Murray was saying ; 
“ seems as if I cannot settle my mind to anything, 
thinking of that dear boy going to destruction right 
here in our midst. What was the reason of it? 
What was wrong? There never was a sweeter baby 
bom than he. Why is evil in the pathway of our 
children? Why does it seem easier for them to sin 
than to do right ? ” 

“ Longfellow attempts to answer the question,” 
returned the Squire. 

“‘It is Lucifer, 

The son of mystery; 

And since God suffers him to be, 

He, too, is God’s minister. 

And labours for some good 
By us not understood.’ ” 


192 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


“ Husband ! ” cried Mrs. Murray, “ it is the peo- 
ple’s will — this traffic in intoxicants, or it never would 
continue ! ” 

From the day of Alexander’s disappearance a hush 
fell over our little village; with common consent, it 
would seem, we stopped talking about him, and in 
the weeks and months, ay, years, that followed his 
name was never mentioned except with bated breath. 
“ The poor woman ! ” was sometimes whispered, when 
his mother’s pale, drawn face was seen on the street 
or at church. 

A short time after Alexander had left the village 
Maggie Thompson’s father and mother decided to 
bring her home again, and sent her the following 
message. “ We’re kin’ o’ lonesome here without ye, 
Maggie, an’ want ye to come home.” 

But Maggie, still pursued with the idea of a great 
work, begged to be allowed to remain. 


XVIII 


BILL GILOOLY LEAVES HOME 
oon as it became evident that Alexander Mc- 



Bain was not in the neighbourhood, the vil- 
lage awoke one morning to find that Bill 


Gilooly, too, was missing. Just after dark, the night 
before, he had tied a shirt and a pair of socks into a 
handkerchief, strung the bundle over a stick, which 
he carried across his shoulder, and walked off down 
the main street, out toward the wide country. 

On his way he had to pass Granny Neilson’s house, 
and glancing in he saw Granny in the window reading 
her Bible. Her lamp was placed close to the glass, 
because a ditch had been dug that day across the 
street to drain a cellar, and, no light having been 
placed by the diggers to warn the travellers, dear 
Granny had taken it upon herself to put the light 
in the window for fear a wayfarer might fall into 
the open ditch. 

Bill looked at the bent form and kindly face for a 
minute, and with a pang he thought that as he 
was going out of the village probably not to return 


193 


194 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


for a long time, he might never see Granny again. 
He remembered that he had sat on her knee when he 
was a little chap, and more than once she had given 
him a cookie or a “ sweetie.” 

“ I’ll bid old Granny good-bye,” said Bill to him- 
self, and, suiting the action to the thought, he stepped 
up to the door and rapped. 

In response to Granny’s invitation he walked in, 
saying, “ I’m goin’ away, Granny, an’ I came in to 
say good-bye.” 

“ Goin’ away, laddie,” said Granny, laying her 
Bible in her lap and taking off her spectacles, “ where 
away ? ” 

“ Off to — to be somebody ; I’m nobody here,” re- 
turned Bill with a catch in his voice, extending his 
hand to the old woman. 

Granny clasped his hand in both of hers and was 
silent a moment, while her thin, old lips moved gently, 
as they seemed to get the fashion of doing more and 
more as she grew older; then she said, slowly and 
quaveringly : 

“ William, would I ever reach Toronto if I started 
off toward Buffalo without turnin’ square around 
an’ walkin’ the other way ? ” 

In a few minutes Bill was out on the road with his 
bundle over his shoulder again, whispering to him- 


BILL GILOOLY LEAVES HOME 195 


self as he trudged along, “ I’m walkin’ th’ other 
way ! I’m walkin’ th’ other way ! ” 

All day he tramped, passing odd wayside taverns, 
whence issued the tempting odour of beer and whisky ; 
indeed Bill had never before known how loud was 
the call that odour made to him, but he kept stead- 
fastly on, murmuring as he turned his face from 
the intoxicating whiffs, “ I’m walkin’ th’ other way, 
I’m walkin’ th’ other way.” 

Bill’s money was scarce ; it had never been his habit 
to save, and he did not feel now that his purse allowed 
him to seek a night’s lodging where he would have 
to pay for it; so as it grew dusk he began to look 
about him for a hayloft. 

He was not long about finding one, for he was trav- 
elling through a farming country. It was quite dusk 
when he climbed up the ladder leading to a hayloft 
over a stable, and threw himself down on the soft, 
fragrant hay. The night was chilly and he scooped 
out a hollow and buried himself all but his head. 
The horses in the stable below were restless, the mice 
were gnawing in the wall, and some belated swallows 
were twittering sleepily in the eaves, but Bill’s couch 
and covering, smelling of clover, mint, and all the 
sweet grasses that are found in a hayfield, carried 
him away from the hayloft, away from all the present 


196 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


sights and sounds, back to his native village. He 
was again in a certain meadow picking wild straw- 
berries from the growing hay, with a number of other 
children who had run away from school at the ten 
minutes’ recess. They were all very much alert dur- 
ing this picking, keeping an eye out for the farmer 
who objected to having his hay trodden down, keeping 
an ear out for the school bell, and trying in the lim- 
ited time to pick and eat as many berries as possible. 
They had come a long way for those berries, and 
climbed several fences, and they would not have time 
to snatch more than a dozen berries before that bell 
would ring, but, oh, they tasted so good! He heard 
again the singing of the birds, and found the blue- 
bird’s nest in the stump, from which he would have 
taken some of the eggs only Maggie Thompson would 
not let him. He knew he would not have stopped 
for any other girl, but Maggie could always make 
him do as she wanted. The drone of the bumblebees 
on the meadow clover made him drowsy ; he thought 
again of Granny Neilson’s words, and, still smelling 
the hay, he fell asleep whispering, “ I’m walkin’ th’ 
other way, I’m walkin’ th’ other way.” 

He awoke in the morning saying the same words, 
which were surely as intelligent a prayer as “ the cry 
of the raven,” and from the fact that all that day 


BILL GILOOLY LEAVES HOME 197 


Bill walked by taverns, and even spent twenty-five 
cents of his spare cash on a meal in one of them 
without touching a drop of whisky, we are assured 
that the prayer was heard. 

Bill continued his walk many days until he reached 
a lumber camp, a small settlement of houses tem- 
porarily built for the accommodation of lumbermen. 
There were no streets in this settlement, no churches, 
no public libraries, no preachers, lawyers, or doctors ; 
but one public building, and that a general store 
where the necessaries of life might be purchased ; and 
in this settlement lived, during the months of the long 
Canadian winter, as many people as are sometimes 
found in a good-sized village. 

As soon as Bill presented himself at headquarters 
experienced eyes saw his fine muscular physique, his 
energetic air, his hands, expressive of hard labour, 
and in a few minutes he was engaged for the winter 
to do chopping in the woods. 

When Bill was within a few hours 5 walk of the 
lumber camp there arrived at the nearest railway 
station Arthur Halton, B. A., a graduate of To- 
ronto University. He had finished his course the 
spring before; and, looking about in the autumn 
for something to do, he had read the advertisement 
in one of the Toronto dailies for a teacher to take 


198 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


charge of the reading-room in a lumber camp of 
northern Ontario. He applied for the position and 
was accepted, and, as it happened, he and Bill Gilooly 
arrived at the camp together. They both sat down 
by the great camp stove to warm themselves, and 
looked each other over critically. 

“ Comm* to chop ? ” said Bill, who was of too 
sociable a nature to remain long silent, eyeing some- 
what doubtfully the slender figure of the city -bred 
young man. 

“ Coming to run the reading-room,” returned 
young Halton cheerfully. 

Bill was silent ; this was unintelligible news to him ; 
he had never seen a reading-room, and had no idea 
as to its use. 

The young men talked about the weather and the 
prospects for the winter, and Bill remarked to him- 
self that this white-handed stranger used mighty fine 
words, such as Alexander McBain used after he came 
from college. Arthur said within himself, 66 That’s 
a bright-looking young chap, not much education, 
but with a most magnificent forehead, and the mus- 
cles of a gladiator.” 

The cook of the camp, knowing that the two 
young travellers would probably be hungry, and it 
was yet two hours until supper time, brought each 


BILL GILOOLY LEAVES HOME 199 


of them a half of a mince pie, and they ate their 
first meal together, and strengthened their bond of 
good feeling. 

Bill did not start to chop that day, and as Arthur 
Halton was going to the small log shanty standing 
by itself, with the words “ The Reading Room ” 
painted in large, white letters over the door, he asked 
Bill to accompany him. 

Entering the building, they found a square room 
with rough board floor and unfinished walls, in the 
middle of which was a large red-hot stove. Tables 
on which lay books and papers flanked the walls, com- 
mon wooden chairs and benches furnished the seating 
accommodation, and a few posters pinned up on the 
logs added a touch of colour to the scene. In half 
an hour Bill had learned that it was to be young 
Halton’s winter work to take charge of this room, 
and to teach any of the lumbermen who were desirous 
of learning. 

In one short week Bill was thoroughly initiated into 
his chopping, and Arthur Halton had well under way 
his various classes of grown pupils. 

Bill was thoroughly interested in this new young 
man who had fallen across his pathway ; he had never 
seen anyone exactly like him before. He watched 
him a fortnight before he said anything, even to 


200 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


himself. He saw that young Halton knew something 
about the stars by night, something that the other 
men did not know; and something that the other 
men did not know about the trees, birds, animals, 
and other objects of nature, and he, Bill, was filled 
with wonder and desire. 

One Sunday he left the company of men in the 
lumber camp and went alone into the solitary pine 
forest to have a talk with himself. As he walked 
along the dim aisles of the forest, the pine needles 
forming a carpet which rendered his footfall noise- 
less, his thoughts became very solemn. It seemed to 
him that the very trees were whispering over his 
head, “ Bill, Bill, be somebody, be somebody.” A 
strange bird called sharply out from the thick for- 
est, 44 Bill, be somebody, somebody, somebody.” A 
red squirrel with his tail over his back saucily re- 
peated the same words; and Bill soliloquised after 
this fashion: 

“ He don’t play cards, he don’t drink, he don’t go 
fur any o’ the fellows’ low tricks. Now, Bill Gilooly, 
you kin play cards, an’ you kin drink, an’ you kin 
smoke, an’ hang ’round an ? have yer fun, but ye 
won’t have what he has ef ye do. Ye kin go on an’ 
run to seed, an’ end worse in this lumber camp than 
ye began, or ye kin make up yer mind to — to — be 


BILL GILOOLY LEAVES HOME 201 


somebody. Ye kin keep on walkin’ th’ other way 
ef ye want to, an’ ef ye don’t want to ye kin have a 
good time an’ end nowhere — ’ceptin’ where the devil 
leads ye.” 

The result of Bill’s soliloquy was that the next 
night he visited the reading-room to see what they 
were doing there. And when he saw full-grown men 
learning their alphabet, and spelling a-n, an, and 
o-x, ox, he felt that his education was pretty well 
advanced. Johnny Lorrimer, a married man with 
two children, was painfully making great pot-hooks 
as the first step toward writing a letter to the home- 
folks. Johnny was also trying to learn to read, but 
sensitively alive to his backwardness he stayed in the 
room every night after the other men had left, to 
say over his alphabet, and spell his words of two 
letters. 

Something in the perseverance of these men en- 
couraged Bill Gilooly to think of improving his 
education; if he knew more than the shanty men, 
Arthur Halton knew much more than he. He deli- 
cately hinted his desire for more knowledge to young 
Halton, and the latter grew enthusiastic at once, and 
urged Bill to begin various branches of study. 

The young university man had the magnetism to 
draw the young wood-chopper unto the uphill path 


202 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


of progress. Every night, during the succeeding 
weeks and months, Bill was a faithful student, and 
his teacher spared no pains to further his efforts. 
At this time Bill had but one prayer, and every 
night the last thing before he went to sleep, if your 
ear had been close to his heart, you could have heard 
him breathing most earnestly, “ I’m walkin’ th’ other 
way, I’m walkin’ th’ other way.” 

Among the lumber men Bill soon became a char- 
acter; when invited to drink he replied, “ No drinks 
fur me, gentlemen, I’m walkin’ th’ other way.” The 
men were amused and mystified, and after a while 
nicknamed him “ Thother Way.” It is said that 
Stanley declared that a brass band could walk un- 
molested into the heart of Africa, such is the love 
of the natives for music. It is quite certain that 
Bill Gilooly walked into the hearts of the men of 
that lumber camp with his little jew’s-harp. It be- 
came quite the custom, when time hung heavy, for 
someone to call out, “ Come, Thother Way, give us a 
tune.” And Bill, seated in front of the great camp 
fire, with groups of men around him in almost every 
conceivable attitude, would stir old memories, and 
move souls, with “ Annie Laurie” “ Home , Sweet 
Home” or “ Old Folks at Home” Bill had a good 
voice, and sometimes he would make the rafters ring 


BILL GILOOLY LEAVES HOME 203 


with “ The Irishman’s Shanty ” or “ Don't Tread 
on the Tail of My Coat." If his repertoire of songs 
ran out before the men’s music hunger was satisfied, 
Bill would give them some of the old revival hymns 
of the home village, and the men would listen in awed 
silence to “ Whoever Repents and Forsakes Every 
Sin," or “ Whiter Than Snow , Yes , Whiter Than 
Snow." 

By spring Bill had made considerable advancement 
with his studies. A number of the other men had 
learned to read during the winter; and the delight 
of poor Johnny Lorrimer at being able to write his 
first letter home was touching. “ They’ll think it’s 
from somebody else,” said Johnny, with a little self- 
congratulatory laugh, as he signed his name to the 
first epistle to his wife, written by his own hand. 

When the camp broke up for the winter Arthur 
Halton, who was going out with a surveying party, 
secured a place for Bill, in whom he had become 
deeply interested, as chain-bearer. Bill continued 
his studies under young Halton’s guidance, and in 
two years he was far enough advanced, and had 
saved sufficient money to enter, for further training, 
a school of practical science. 


XIX 


MORE OF ALEXANDER 

W HEN Alexander boarded the train at 
that midnight hour in his home vil- 
lage he crept into a baggage car 
and slipped down unnoticed behind a large bale of 
goods. He slept during the hours of darkness, but 
waked at the first peep of dawn. The train rolled 
on and on past miles and leagues of miles of fields 
and forests, passing tracts of beauty, rare with purl- 
ing stream and autumn-tinted leaf, leaving in its 
wake many a sleeping village and stirring city, but 
Alexander, in his dark corner behind the bale of 
goods, could see nothing. The passenger coaches 
were full, and no doubt were carrying many a sor- 
rowing heart — sorrow is the only weight that the 
rail-trains carry in tons through the country free 
of freightage — but among the world of travellers 
there was not a more miserable, sorrow-stricken being 
than the one who lay behind the bale of goods in 
the freight car of that west-bound train. Shut out 
204 


MORE OF ALEXANDER 


205 


from seeing, he had nothing to do but think. As 
he lay there through the hours he could not divert 
his mind from going back over all his life as far as 
memory could carry him. When he had taken his 
first glass or two, after disposing of the silver bowl 
and little red shoes, he seemed to suddenly awake to 
the enormity of his deed, and, rushing out of the 
tavern with the intention of doing something des- 
perate, he knew not what, he heard that night train 
come in, and suddenly conceived the idea of boarding 
it and being carried away out of the sight and hear- 
ing and memory of all those who had ever known 
him. Nothing now could wipe out that deed, and 
death itself was preferable to going back to face his 
mother and others who must learn of his dastardly 
act. He remembered now as keenly as when it hap- 
pened the time his mother had taken down that silver 
bowl and that pair of little red shoes, when he was 
yet a very small lad, not scorning to sit on her knee, 
and tell him the story of the christening. He re- 
membered Maggie being in the house, sitting on his 
mother’s other knee, and hearing the same story, not 
once or twice, but a dozen times, for, childlike, they 
would have it repeated over and over again. He re- 
membered that his mother never seemed tired of telling 
it ; he could see the gleam of interest in her eye. What 


206 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


would Maggie say when it was written to her what 
he had done? What would Mrs. McTavish say? 
and Granny Neilson? and all the rest of the village? 
He lived over again the scenes of his boyhood, the 
self-denials of his mother, which he could under- 
stand now as never before, the prayers he had been 
taught, the Sunday school training, the warning and 
encouraging words which his minister had spoken 
to him all through his growing years, Maggie’s de- 
votion to his interests, the times he had beaten Maggie 
saying the verses ; they all were like live coals heaped 
on his head. Did Maggie really care for him, he asked 
himself, or had she learned to despise him? He felt 
somehow that she still had hopes that he would amount 
to something; she had spoken that way when they 
parted; and he felt as though he ought to write 
and scatter them; tell her to drop him from her 
memory forever — yes, forever . Why should that 
peerless Maggie be harbouring such a reprobate as 
he in her heart and memory ? Looking about him at 
this moment he saw a white sheet of paper on the 
floor, which evidently someone had dropped, and, 
reaching for it, he wrote by the dim light which en- 
tered by a crack the cranny where he lay, with a 
stub of a lead pencil he found in his pocket, a letter 
to Maggie. 


MORE OF ALEXANDER 


207 


Some time the next day, finding that the train had 
stopped, he crept out to get something to eat. The 
place was a city, and, finding a pawnshop, his first 
act was to pawn his watch, the old silver watch which 
had been his father’s. 

After satisfying his hunger he intended to buy 
an envelope and stamp for the letter to Maggie, which 
he had written on the train, but he wandered around 
the streets for a while, smelling the whiffs of beer 
and whisky as he passed the places where these com- 
modities were kept on sale. He ended by taking a 
drink and having his money stolen from him. Then 
he boarded another train, rode some hours among the 
freight, was discovered and put off. He next pawned 
his coat for food, and kept stealing rides on freight 
trains, going hither and thither, he knew not where, 
sometimes retracing his way. 

At length he stole a long ride on a freight train 
that carried him into the great Northwest of his own 
country. When the train stopped to take on water, 
faint, hungry, coatless, he crept out from his hiding- 
place. He found a hamlet, not much more than a 
tavern. “ Wayside Tavern 55 was printed in large, 
bold letters over the door of a frame building which 
stood not far from the track. The train almost im- 
mediately passed on and Alexander walked up to the 


208 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


tavern. He had no money, but he must get something 
to eat. He was met at the door by the proprietor, 
who, eyeing him over and recognising his dilapidated 
condition, asked him gruffly what he wanted. 

“ I’ll do some work for you for something to eat,” 
said the miserable young man. 

a You will,” returned the tavern-keeper, Mark 
Ahrens; “ what can you do? ” 

66 Cut wood,” returned Alexander hesitatingly. 

“ Cut wood, hey? I ain’t got no wood to cut just 
now; you’d better clear out.” 

“ What does he want? ” called in from the kitchen 
the sharp voice of the tavern-keeper’s wife. 

“ He wants to cut wood fer somethin’ to eat,” re- 
turned her husband ; “ I ain’t got no wood, so we’ve 
no vittles to spare,” he added with a laugh. 

“ Can’t he come out here an’ peel these potatoes ? ” 
said the woman ; “ there’s a lot o’ railroaders cornin’ 
in here for supper to-night, an’ we ain’t half help 
in the kitchen, sence our kitchen girl run away.” 

The tavern-keeper looked at Alexander and waved 
his hand out toward the kitchen, and the latter 
walked meekly in the direction whence the woman’s 
voice preceeded. 

“ Here,” said the woman as soon as she saw him, 
startled for a moment by the air of gentility in his 


MORE OF ALEXANDER 


209 


face, and knowing without being told that he was 
somebody who had come down a long way to have 
reached the position he now occupied ; “ peel these 
potatoes,” pointing to a bushel of potatoes in a large 
pan. 

“ Did you ever peel potatoes before?” she asked 
sharply. 

u No,” said Alexander, feeling for a moment that 
his education had been neglected. 

“ I thought not,” said the woman, as she eyed the 
long white fingers picking up a potato ; “ played the 
piano, I suppose,” she added sarcastically. “ Well, 
don’t pare ’em too heavy, that’s all ; an’ you’ve plenty 
o’ time to learn on this bushel ; they’re not wanted till 
supper time.” 

“ Supper time,” said Alexander, like one talking 
in a dream ; “ I haven’t had anything to eat since 
supper time yesterday.” 

The woman looked at him sharply. “ No wonder 
you’re white, hands an’ all,” she exclaimed. “ See 
here,” she added after a moment’s thought, “ you’ll 
promise me you’ll stay ’round and work, not light out, 
ef I give you something to eat first? ” 

“ Certainly, Madam,” returned Alexander. 

The woman hurried off after some food, feeling 
somewhat flattered at being called Madam. “ 6 Cer- 


210 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

tainly, Madam/ ” she whispered to herself, 44 instid o’ 
4 yes, mum ’ ; he talks just like the college professor.” 
The college professor was a geologist who at one 
time stayed a week at the Wayside Tavern for the 
purpose of studying the rocks of the vicinity, and he 
was the only other person who had ever addressed the 
tavern-keeper’s wife as 46 Madam.” 

She returned very soon with a plate of cold meat 
and bread, and set them on the table quickly ; some- 
how she almost felt shy before this new domestic she 
was bringing into the kitchen to peel potatoes, and 
as soon as she had set a pitcher of milk on the table 
she left the room. 

Betty Splan, the one female domestic in the Way- 
side Tavern, had been out bringing in her washing 
when Alexander arrived, and she regarded him with 
undisguised surprise and admiration when she came 
in half an hour later and found him in the kitchen. 

Betty had a strong, little Dutch pony figure, and 
a pair of cheeks like two great red apples ; she never 
knew anything in her life but perfect health, and, 
consequently, anything delicate or fragile, anything 
long and thin, had a special charm for her. To do 
Betty full justice, it may have been that the frail 
and weak made an appeal for protection to her su- 
perior physical robustness. When she saw Alexan- 


MORE OP ALEXANDER 


211 


der’s white brow, from which the hair was pushed 
straight back, making it look higher, — Betty had 
no brow to speak of, — his thin, exhausted face, from 
which the blue eyes looked out weirdly, the long, 
white fingers, she cried in her secret heart, 44 That 
beauty peelin’ potatoes ! ” 

She hung her sunbonnet on its nail, disposed of 
her basket of clothes, and hastening breathless into 
the presence of the tavern-keeper’s wife, she whis- 
pered sharply: 

44 What’s that pretty man doin’ out there with 
them potatoes ? ” 

44 Now see here, Betty Splan,” returned the mis- 
tress, 44 if you go takin’ a shine to that man I’ll send 
him away, do you hear? ” 

44 Yes’m,” said Betty, and she withdrew without 
saying anything more. 

She came back to the kitchen and began to sprinkle 
the clothes preparatory to ironing them, but her eyes 
were not very many seconds off the interesting 
stranger. 

Alexander worked on, never raising his eyes, which 
gave Betty more liberty to gaze, but despite his ef- 
forts he was making very slow progress with his peel- 
ing, which fact Betty recognised. 

It was drawing near the time when the potatoes 


212 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

should be placed on the stove to boil, and they were 
not half peeled. Betty, fearing that the mistress 
would come and find fault with the new help — per- 
haps dismiss him — seized a knife, and moving up to 
the great pan she began to peel dexterously, saying 
apologetically, “ I’ll give ye a helpin’ hand with 
these, seein’ I’ve not much else to do.” 

That night Alexander was sitting moodily in the 
darkest corner of the kitchen, when Betty rolled out 
a churn and began vigorously to work the dasher. 
He watched her absently for ten minutes, then he 
said, rising from his seat: 

“ I’ll do that churning for you, if you’ll give me 
a postage stamp and envelope.” 

Betty would have been delighted to have given him 
the required articles without any return, but this 
was the first time he had actually addressed her, and 
to encourage him into further conversation she let 
him chum, and ran off upstairs for them. She soon 
returned. 

He had worked but a short time when Betty no- 
ticed his air of languor ; coming near the churn she 
presented the stamp and envelope, saying coyly — she 
had planned while she was upstairs how to find out 

his name : “ Here Mr. I don’t know what to 

call you.” 


MORE OF ALEXANDER 


213 


“ Call me Jock,” said Alexander. 

“ J ock ! That’s a queer name.” 

“ Fm Scotch,” returned Alexander. 

46 Well, Jock, here’s your stamp an’ envelope; an’ 
leave me do that churnin’, you look as weak as a 
baby,” and she seized with her two strong, red hands 
the handle of the dasher. 

Alexander expostulated in vain — she would not 
let him churn any more. But, as a reward for this 
generosity, she insisted on his talking to her; the 
number of her questions left him no chance of 
escape. 

Later, when the churning was done, Alexander, 
with a tallow candle stuck in a slice of turnip, which 
served as a candlestick, climbed two flights of stairs 
to his small attic room. No carpet or even mat 
covered the unpainted floor. No curtains or blind 
screened the one window, and the black night looked 
so boldly in that the young man shuddered. No pic- 
tures adorned the yellow plastered wall, except a 
leering, red representation of Mephisto, which was 
pinned on the wall at the foot of the black-posted 
bed; it had been the advertisement of some theat- 
rical company, and Betty had pinned it there just 
before he came upstairs, thinking to beautify his 
room. Alexander looked at the picture and went 


214 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

over and took it down, saying to himself, “ I’ve 
enough of his company without looking at him at the 
foot of my bed.” 

He was quite sober now, and he undressed decently 
and lay down on his straw pallet. 

“ Well, I’m in a comer now where no one will find 
me,” he soliloquised, or rather thought, “ and I’ll 
stay here, yes, stay here for my lifetime! I’ll get 
something to eat for the work I’ll do, and that is all 
anyone — anyone like me — requires. I’ll disgrace no 
one here, no one will be made miserable looking at 
me. I wonder how long I shall live — not long, I 
hope; and I suppose they’ll bury me in the great 
desolate prairie around this house. It is fitting that 
I should have a hotel-yard for a burial place. They’ve 
given me up by this time in the village. I wonder 
what they’re all doing — Bill Gilooly, One-Armed Joe, 
and all the rest of them. Mrs. Brady, Mrs. Mc- 
Shane, the Village Helper; they'll call me the bad 
names that I deserve; Mrs. McTavish, Mr. Vickers, 
they'll be trying to comfort Mother. Mother is sit- 
ting white and silent — nobody will get Mother to 
speak much — thinking — thinking.” Here Alexan- 
der clenched his teeth and buried his face in his hard 
corn-husk pillow. w It would be easy to end it all 
— all this misery,” he continued. “ I could throw my- 


MORE OF ALEXANDER 


215 


self under the passing train, or plunge into some 
pond, or borrow a pistol — or — or ” He shud- 

dered and stopped. Something held him back from 
self-destruction, his mother, Maggie, Granny Neil- 
son, all the good folk of the village seemed to be 
stretching out hands to save him. 

The wind sighed and moaned dismally around his 
attic, the black night seemed to frown at him through 
the curtainless window, which he could see even from 
his bed; some cats were quarrelling on the ground 
beneath, and the noise they made sounded demoniacal 
to his overwrought nerves. He thought of the pic- 
ture of Mephisto, which he had twisted up and thrown 
under the bed. Shivering, he drew the bedclothes 
over his head. This act made him remember how his 
mother, when he was a little fellow, used to pull up 
the bedclothes and tuck them around him. Almost 
unconsciously, as in that olden time, his lips began 
to say, “ Now I lay me down to sleep, I — no, no ! ” 
he cried aghast ; “ I dare not take such words on 
my lips ! 99 He remembered that he used to add, 
when he had finished the first prayer, “ God bless 
Mother, and Maggie, and Mr. Vickers,” and won- 
dered confusedly whether he could dare to say even 
that. How did God regard him now? Was He will- 
ing to hear any prayer at all from such as he? 


216 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


At that very instant he was licking his lips, and his 
throat was parching for a drink of whisky. 

A heavy stupor gradually stole over his senses and 
he was asleep. 

Over in her corner of the attic Betty was also 
talking to herself : “ When I says 4 goin’ 5 he says 
‘ going 9 ; when I says 6 git, 5 he says 4 get 5 ; he may be 
a lord — or a count — or a dook, travellin’ ’round in 
disguise, sayin’ them nice words; I’ve read about 
them in the novels.” 


XX 


LIFE AT THE WAYSIDE TAVERN 

T HE next morning Alexander rose at the 
ringing of a bell and dressed himself. 
When he went to put on his collar he saw 
that it was soiled and crushed, and he laid it back 
again on the table. His mother had always been 
careful to keep him supplied with a collar, and now 
for the first time in his life he would have to appear 
in society without one. He turned his coat collar 
up around his neck and went downstairs. 

Betty at once noticed the absence of the badge 
of distinction and felt grievously disappointed; it 
did not fall in with her ideas that a disguised noble- 
man should be collarless. After awhile she worked 
up courage to tell him that he had forgotten to put 
it on, and learned that he had but the one, and it was 
too soiled to wear. 

That night when he went to his room he found the 
collar on the table freshly laundried by Betty’s hands, 
but he decided to keep it for occasions, as he had but 
the one. He further discovered before retiring that 
217 


218 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


Betty had put the picture of an angel with hovering 
wings at the foot of the bed, in the place formerly 
occupied by Mephisto. He noticed at a glance that 
the face of the angel looked wonderfully like an 
actress. 

Early that evening Betty had walked three miles 
to the post office, ostensibly on some errand for her- 
self, but really to post Alexander’s letter. Within a 
week after it was dropped into the rough box at the 
prairie post office it was received at the hospital. 

Maggie had by this time finished her probationary 
term and was duly installed into the arduous work of 
a nurse in training. Somehow, however, she did not 
enjoy her work as she had expected. She could not 
get out of her mind the lonesome look on her father’s 
face when she was leaving home; and it had grown, 
in some mysterious way, to seem like a greater work 
to stay at home and be a comfort to him, than to 
wait on strangers. When she thought about Sandy 
she pressed her lips tightly together, and something 
choked her in her throat. 

Then she was present at the dissection of an ether- 
ised dog, and she could not get it out of her foolish 
little head that it was Trusty, dear old Trusty, that 
had padded around for so many years in the very 


LIFE AT THE WAYSIDE TAVERN 219 


footsteps of herself and Sandy. It worked on her 
nerves, and she went out from the dissecting-room to 
shed many tears. 

Sandy was not writing to her ; he had been angry 
with her for leaving the village, and he had never 
written a single letter. But Maggie always felt that 
the anger would be short-lived — she and Sandy 
had been friends, chums, almost from babyhood, they 
never could be anything else. She still wore the 
ring crowned with two hearts, “ I will always wear 
it,” she had said to herself, looking down on the 
little ring, which had grown somewhat tarnished. 

One particular day, looking over the pile of mail 
that had been brought in for the inmates of the 
house, she descried the one addressed to herself in 
Alexander’s handwriting. She snatched it up hun- 
grily and ran off to the privacy of her own room to 
read it. Tearing open the envelope she read: 

“ Dear Maggie : 

“ I am out in the world — gone for good from home and all 
decency; so I am writing this letter to tell you to wipe me 
clean out of your memory. I shall never be seen or heard of 
again by anyone who has known me. For fear you might have 
hopes that I am not altogether depraved, and that I might 
some time amount to anything, I must tell you that I was 
base enough to steal the silver bowl, out of which I was chris- 
tened, and the little red shoes which I wore on that occasion, 


220 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


and traded them off to gratify my appetite for whisky. You 
remember, Maggie, when you used to sit on one of Mother’s 
knees, and I on the other, and she used to tell us the story of 
the christening, and all about the silver bowl and the red shoes. 
I could not sink to deeper degradation; at last, Maggie, I have 
eaten the caterpillars and worms I used to threaten you with. 
You shall never be bothered again by the boy on whom you 
wasted so much precious time and thought. Dig a little hole 
in the ground and bury the ring crowned with two hearts. 

“Sandy.” 

She read it over several times before she could 
fully comprehend it — fully believe it. Then Maggie, 
brave Maggie, strong Maggie, buried her face in the 
pillows and cried, “ Oh, Giant Despair has got him ! 
Giant Despair has got him at last! I should never 
have left him ! God gave him to me to take care of 
when he was only a little fellow; I should have stuck 
to my work ! I should have stuck to my work ! ” 

When this first spasm of weeping was over she 
rose and hid the letter away in the deepest recesses 
of her trunk. And she shoved the ring crowned with 
two hearts more firmly down on her finger. 

Glancing at her small clock she saw that it was 
time for her to go on duty; the suffering of others 
left her scant time to nurse her own grief, and she 
hurried off to the wards to spend the night with the 
sick and the dying. 


LIFE AT THE WAYSIDE TAVERN 221 


Among his new, strange surroundings, perhaps 
owing partly to the invigorating air of the prairie, 
Alexander had not, since his arrival, felt the crav- 
ing for drink as he had aforetime felt it. Immedi- 
ately he jumped to the joyous conclusion that he 
would never drink again. He was walking on the 
prairie when he had been in the locality a week, and, 
finding a feather out of an owl’s wing, he said to 
himself, “ I’ll make a quill-pen out of this, write a 
pledge with my heart’s blood, sign it, and make sure 
that whisky shall never again cross my lips.” 

He carried the feather home and that night in 
his room he whittled, with a knife which he had carried 
from the kitchen, a pen from the quill. Scratching 
his wrist with the sharp point of a needle, he dipped 
the quill into the red blood from his veins, dated his 
paper — which was the white side of a label off one 
of Mark Ahrens’ whisky bottles — and wrote the fol- 
lowing pledge: 

“ I promise from this day forward to all eternity, to totally 
abstain from all forms of alcoholic drinks. 

“Alexander McBain." 

He had not been more than two weeks in his new 
home, when one day the proprietor, who was also the 
bartender, conceived a sudden notion to go hunting 


222 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


for the day with a party which had just paused at 
the Wayside Tavern for “ the drinks.” 

“ Here, Jock,” he said, rushing into the kitchen, 
where he found the latter scouring some tinware, 
“ you must tend bar while I’m away for the day. 
There’s nothin’ pertickler to do but sell all the 
whisky ye kin ; that’s mostly what this house is kep’ 
up on.” 

A flash as of fire shot from Alexander’s eyes, as 
he looked up from his work, and for one moment he 
thought of confessing his weakness to the tavern- 
keeper, but the next moment the man was gone — the 
party of hunters had already started and he must 
hurry and overtake them. 

Alexander dropped the pan he was scouring, went 
up to his room and put on his collar, although Mark 
Ahrens had never thought it necessary to wear a 
collar to sell whisky. For the first time in his life 
the young man was going to figure as a bartender, 
and the mere thought of dealing out the fiery liquid 
put him all in a tremble; but he said to himself, 
“ I’ll let it alone. Of course I can’t touch it — I’ve 
signed the pledge.” 

During the forenoon the customers dropped in at 
short intervals ; there was the blacksmith of the set- 
tlement, whose shop was not far from the tavern, 


LIFE AT THE WAYSIDE TAVERN 223 

and there were some of the section men from the 
railroad, and others ; and the smell of the liquor, as 
he poured it out into the glasses, caused the perspira- 
tion to come out in cold drops on Alexander’s brow. 

Once, when left for a space of time alone in the 
barroom, he raised a bottle and slowly poured out 
a glass of whisky. “ It’s for the next customer,” 
he said, “ to have it ready.” He regarded the amber- 
coloured liquid for a moment, turned hot, then cold, 
red, and pale, trembled, clenched his teeth, and swal- 
lowed a sob in his throat. His mind flew to the home- 
folk — to Maggie — to the pledge he had signed; he 
threw out his arms into the air, as a drowning man 
clutching for something. “ My God,” he whispered 
hoarsely, “just this one!” And, snatching fran- 
tically at the brimming glass, he swallowed the con- 
tents without taking a breath. 

Some of the patrons of the bar coming in shortly 
after recognised that there was a new bartender, a 
gentlemanly-looking chap, and insisted on treating 
him; there was no escape, he had drunk another 
brimming glass ten minutes after his first. By noon 
he was in his happy, poetic mood; he made Betty 
blush so furiously that her forehead grew as red as 
her cheeks, quoting to her, when he went into his 
dinner of boiled beef and cabbage: 


224 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


“ • I am ; in my condition, 

A prince, Miranda; I do think, a king; 

(I would, not so!) and would no more endure 

This wooden slavery, than to suffer 

The flesh-fly blow my mouth. Hear my soul speak: 

The very instant that I saw you, did 
My heart fly to your service; there resides. 

To make me slave to it; and for your sake. 

Am I this patient log-man.’” 

44 He said he was a prince , 55 soliloquised Betty, as 
she washed the greasy pots and pans after dinner, 
44 an 5 I kin well believe it ; he’s such a pretty man 
he might be anythin’, even a king. Did he really 
mean me,” — and Betty blushed again at the thought 
— 44 when he said, 4 the very instant that I saw you 
did my heart fly to your service ’ ? — What did he see 
about me? ” Betty took her hands out of the dish- 
water and ran across the kitchen to peep at a re- 
flection of her face in a seven-by-nine mirror hanging 
on the wall. 44 But my name is not Miranda,” she 
said droopingly, coming back to her dishpan. 
44 P’raps he had a girl once, an’ she died, an’ her name 
was Miranda, an’ when he saw me I put him in mind 
of her — it must be that. Well, I’ll do all I kin fer 
him fer Miranda’s sake.” 

When the tavern-keeper returned about four o’clock 
he found Alexander laid out on the floor behind the 


LIFE AT THE WAYSIDE TAVERN 225 


barroom counter. He was allowed to lie there, as he 
was not in the way, and he was out of the sight of 
customers, until he became sober enough to walk 
away. 

When he could stand on his feet, the tavern-keeper’s 
wife came into the barroom to look at him — the col- 
lege professor had appeared in a new role . 

Fixing his dazed eyes upon her, he said brokenly : 

‘“She pined in thought. 

And with — a green — and yellow melancholy. 

She sat — like Patience on a monument. 

Smiling — at grief.’ ” 

Now, the tavern-keeper’s wife was always secretly 
jealous of Betty Splan’s red cheeks, and to be taunted 
right to her face about her own green-and-yellow 
complexion was too much to endure, and the unfortu- 
nate Shakespearian scholar had made for himself an- 
other enemy. He would have been turned away right 
on the spot only that help was hard to get that 
was willing to stay in that out-of-the-way place, and 
Alexander had made himself very useful. It was de- 
cided, however, between the united heads of the house 
that he must be confined to the kitchen work; and 
the mistress, now that she had once seen him drunk, 
bossed him around with much more ease. 


226 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


He ventured one day to ask the proprietor for some 
wages, but after his day in the barroom the tavern- 
keeper guessed pretty shrewdly that he was some poor 
derelict hiding away from civilisation, and he saw 
his opportunity to reap some advantage to himself, 
so he answered gruffly : 

44 Whose goin’ to give a drunken cuss like you 
wages? Wages, indeed! Ef yer allowed to lay 
’round the place, like an old spavined horse, an’ git 
somethin’ to eat, ye may thank yer stars ! ” Crushed 
and cowed, Alexander walked away from the presence 
of the tavern-keeper, and he never spoke of wages 
again. 

He peeled potatoes, washed dishes, scrubbed, and 
scoured, month after month, all for his board and 
an occasional glass of whisky. When his boots and 
clothes began to get unwearable he was allowed to 
put on some of the tavern-keeper’s cast-off apparel, 
which was several sizes too large for him. 

Betty, who, despite the episode in the barroom, 
could not get over her deference for that thin, pale 
face, continued to wash and iron his collar until it was 
worn out. 44 I’m doin’ it all for Miranda’s sake,” 
she whispered to herself as she added an extra polish 
to the linen. Alexander put it on only on Sunday; 
indeed the wearing of that collar was about the only 


LIFE AT THE WAYSIDE TAVERN 227 


thing that distinguished Sunday from other days 
at the Wayside Tavern. 

The place was bookless and paperless, with the ex- 
ception of an occasional newspaper that was left by 
the passing traveller, and some outrageously silly 
novels owned by Betty. The latter, learning Alex- 
ander’s desire for something to read, “ that nobody 
else kin understand,” she explained to herself, came 
in triumphantly one day with a paper-bound copy of 
Shakespeare, which she had found among some de- 
bris — it had been left by some travelling com- 
pany. 

i “ This will do him," she said to herself, as she turned 
the leaves of the book, “ ’cause there’s no head or tail 
or anythin’ else to it a common body kin under- 
stand.” After that Alexander spent his spare time 
Sundays adding to his knowledge of the great 
dramatist. 

In the course of time it was found out at the Way- 
side Tavern that Alexander could be quite entertain- 
ing when half drunk, and the proprietor began to 
boast about it. 

“ He kin quote po’try es easy es you an’ me kin 
cuss an’ swear, an’ string off Latin like a Catholic 
priest,” he said to some of his customers. And it 
became his practice to bring Alexander in to the 


228 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

barroom on occasions — when a band of miners, hun- 
ters, or other jolly fellows were spending the night 
at the tavern, and give him enough whisky to “ tune 
him up 99 to make fun for his guests. 

One night he had been brought in to a group of 
roystering fellows; he was out of sorts that night, 
and even after his second glass was silent and moody. 

“ Come, J ock,” said the tavern-keeper, “ we want 
some fun ; give us yer po’fry.” 

Alexander stood to his feet and began: 

“ 4 Am I not fallen away vilely since this last ac- 
tion? Do I not bate? Do I not dwindle? 9 99 Clutch- 
ing the loose garments that draped his form, he 
continued, 44 4 Why, my skin hangs about me like an 
old lady’s loose gown; I am withered like an old 
apple- john. Well, I’ll repent, and that suddenly, 
while I am in some liking; I shall be out of heart 
shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. 
And I have not forgotten what the inside of a church 
is made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer’s horse: the 
inside of a church! Company, villainous company, 
hath been the spoil of me.’ ” 

A loud guffaw followed his last words, and, turning 
to the proprietor of the house, the guests said, 
“ That’s a bad one on you, Ahrens, 4 company, vil- 
lainous company, hath been the spoil of me.’ ” 


LIFE AT THE WAYSIDE TAVERN 229 


The tavern-keeper was half drunk and he chose to 
see something in this to be angry about, so he 
bounded across the room and cuffed Alexander 
soundly, roaring, “ Go back to your dishwashin,’ ye 
dirty, cringin’, miserable groundhog ! ” 

Crouching and dodging the blows, Alexander 
crept out of the barroom, back to the great pan of 
dishes awaiting him in the kitchen. 

But the spell of the whisky was still upon him, 
and, standing in the middle of the kitchen floor, he 
raised his hand and addressed his Shakespeare to the 
door that had just slammed against him: 

“ ‘ Use me as your spaniel. 

Spurn me, strike me 

Betty Splan, who was not in the least disturbed 
by seeing a man drunk, burst into a loud snicker. 
At this Alexander turned and said dramatically: 

“ ‘ And will you rend our ancient love asunder 
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?’” 

Betty, having never even heard of the “ Midsum- 
mer Night’s Dream,” thought Jock had composed 
the lines just on the spot especially for her, and, 
blushing charmingly, she insisted in washing all the 
dishes for him. 


XXI 


IN THE WILDERNESS 

T HE months stretched into years, and still 
Alexander continued at the Wayside Tav- 
ern, wearing the proprietor’s old grey 
full-cloth clothes, the cast-offs, and becoming more 
stooped and spiritless with every passing day. After 
his collar had worn out he made no attempt to pre- 
sent a better appearance on Sunday than on any 
other day. The lower part of his face became cov- 
ered with a forest of untrimmed whiskers, and it is 
doubtful whether his most intimate Mapleton friends 
would have recognised him could they have seen 
him. 

Not many miles from where he was stranded grew 
great stretches of rippling wheat. The call of 
“ life’s incessant prayer” seemed to be more fully 
answered on these great, mysterious prairie stretches 
than elsewhere. From the beginning of the world 
the grasses, growing and rotting, had deposited a 
foot or two of jet-black mould, and the combination 
formed the greatest wheat soil of the world. 

230 


IN THE WILDERNESS 


231 


A little further on the mining prospector was 
drawing from the full veins of this great western 
land the precious metals, but the poor, shackled, dis- 
spirited Alexander was not in touch or sympathy 
with any of those absorbing interests. 

If he heard at all about the gold he only thought 
of it as something with which he could get whisky, 
and he never went far enough from his shelter to even 
see the yellow waves of wheat running like an illimit- 
able sea, away to the blue sky-line, nor to hear the 
hum of the thousand harvesters who came every au- 
tumn to gamer in the precious grain. 

There were fenceless, trackless reaches which were 
covered only with prairie-grass and wild flowers, and 
it was in some miles from the edge of the latter that 
the Wayside Tavern was situated, on the line of a 
freight express. In this situation it sold much 
whisky, and accommodated over night the miners, 
hunters, and other prospectors and wayfarers that 
came its direction. 

Always Alexander’s mind was turned toward the 
East, toward a country intersected by many fences, 
toward a village through which meandered a sluggish 
river, and a sluggish canal, toward a humble home 
and a plain little mother, and a fair girl in bright 
frocks. Betty at times caught him gazing dreamily 


232 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

over the vast expanse of prairie, looking wistfully into 
the heart of sunsets or full moons, and on such occa- 
sions she would remark to herself : 

“ He wants somethin’ he ain’t got.” 

Betty, it would seem, had also established herself 
permanently at the Wayside Tavern; she had no 
relations in this country, and, having nothing to en- 
tice her elsewhere, she somehow felt a reluctance about 
leaving Alexander to the mercy of the tavern-keeper 
and his wife. Much of her interest in life died out 
when she had no longer had his collar to wash and 
iron. In her secret heart she took pleasure in re- 
garding him as a disguised and suffering scion of 
nobility — perhaps royalty — and the fact that he 
scarcely seemed to notice her existence but heightened 
her interest and confirmed her romantic imaginings. 
She was quite certain (she had gleaned the idea from 
her novels) that a day would come when the world 
would recognise him. 

It was the day before Christmas, when the west- 
bound train was rolling by the Wayside Tavern, that 
a roll of papers either fell by accident or was thrown 
from a car. Jock saw it fall, and when the train 
had passed on he went out to the track and picked it 
up. Untying the parcel he found a bundle of Sunday 
school papers. He felt as if something had risen 


IN THE WILDERNESS 


233 


from the dead to confront him — the dead past. He 
wanted to examine the papers by himself — where no 
eye would be upon him — so he carried them to the 
hayloft over the stable. 

Opening one of the papers he read the following 
little childish lines : 


“ Under the stars, one holy night 
A little babe was born; 

Over his head a star shone bright, 

And glistened till the morn. 

And wise men came from far away, 

And shepherds wandered where he lay. 
Upon his lowly bed of hay, 

Under the stars one night.” 


What magic was in those lines that made him see 
again the little home schoolhouse, that made him feel 
again Maggie’s child hand in his, that caused his 
mother’s voice to ring in his ears? What did it all 
mean? It surely had no meaning for him. What was 
that Christ-child to the world now? He seemed to 
have utterly gone out of the world in which the in- 
habitants of the Wayside Tavern lived. Did he come 
near the world at all now? “ He came when I was 
a little fellow learning such verses as these,” said 
Jock to himself, “ but He is gone from the world 


234 , 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


now — gone — gone ! The devil is now ruling the 
world ! ” he cried in a voice of tragedy. 

Betty down in the stable milking the cow heard the 
cry, and said musingly, “ There he be agen, wantin’ 
somethin’ he ain’t got.” 

On the same day, thousands of miles away, in the 
unknown quiet little village that had once been Jock’s 
home, a sad woman with a wan face was sitting by an 
old-fashioned fireplace, smoothing across her knee a 
little stocking and thinking ; going back through the 
years to the time when the rosy little foot that had 
worn the stocking faltered as it came across the room. 
Then on to the time when the steps grew more assured 
and boyish shouts of glee filled the small home. Then 
the hanging of the stocking by the chimney on Christ- 
mas Eve. 

The hickory log had turned to coals in the fire- 
place, and the woman was looking into them, the 
depths in her wan face growing more unfathomable, 
when a tremulous tap came to the door, and Granny 
Neilson walked in. Granny always made it a prac- 
tice to spend every Christmas Eve with the lonely 
mother. Seeing the little stocking on the knee of the 
latter, and guessing pretty correctly the mother’s 
thoughts, she said : 


IN THE WILDERNESS 


235 


“ God is followin’ our boy, Jessie; our prayers are 
never ceasin;’ an’ He never turns a deaf ear to th’ 
cry o’ his children.” 

About five miles from the Wayside Tavern was a 
schoolhouse that had been built some years before 
Alexander reached the locality. 

The prairie had been a very fascinating place to 
the band of settlers that had come to take land and 
build homes in the neighbourhood where the school- 
house was now situated. The parts of it that were 
undisturbed by the settler’s plough were covered in 
early spring by the wild blue crocus. The little 
mounds of the prairie dogs were so set in a nest of 
bloom that it seemed as if Nature had provided a 
flower garden for the front and back yards of each 
animal. In June the vast expanse of colour turned 
pink when the wild roses held the field, pinning down 
for the time being the prairie grass. In places where 
the flowers gave it a chance, the delicate buffalo-grass 
raised its sickle-shaped head, grew during the short, 
fervid summer, and in the autumn dried as it stood, 
that during the winter the flocks and herds which 
roamed the prairie might “ nibble sharp-toothed the 
rich, thick-growing blades.” 

After a while, however, the novelty wore off, and the 


236 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


settlers longed for some of the privileges of their old 
home. Sunday was a long, dull day, and on that day 
the prairie became a dreary place. They had been 
brought up in their old home to regard Sunday as a 
day for assembling themselves together, a day for the 
worshipping of the Lord in the congregation of the 
people, and it was very hard to have to spend it sitting 
around home. No provision had been made for public 
service, no minister came within thirty miles of their 
district. 

The schoolhouse which had been built after they 
had been there a few years for the education of their 
children was in use but a week, when one day in early 
summer one of the settlers’ wives, as she was driving 
along the trail that ran past the schoolhouse, an old, 
firm, well-trodden path, partly grass-grown, where in 
bygone days the buffalo had trod in great black herds 
of hundreds, had an inspiration. At least something 
about the square, unadorned, homely building, part 
wood and part mud, standing all by itself among the 
broad acres, made her think of the old schoolhouse 
in the East, where she attended when a child, and of 
the Sunday school which was held there every Lord’s 
day. And with this came the thought which Mrs. 
Hezekiah Hinks expressed aloud, “ Why can’t we 
have a Sunday school here? ” 


IN THE WILDERNESS 


237 


The little bronco, the wild pony which had been 
caught on the prairie and tamed, which she was driv- 
ing, was so astonished at the unusual words that he 
almost stopped and tried to look around at her. 

When Mrs. Hinks reached home she unhitched the 
bronco, for the prairie women were well skilled in such 
work ; but all the while she was undoing buckles and 
sliding straps her mind was busy with the project of 
a Sunday school. 

She came out of the stable which faced the west, 
and the great rolling prairie looked at that moment 
like a range of mountains: one slope crimson with 
the reflected glory of the sunset, while surrounding 
slopes lay in purple shadows. The very sight put 
her in mind of some of her Sunday school verses, and 
she whispered softly something about “ the pastures 
of the wilderness .” 

That night over the supper table she spoke of the 
project to her husband ; but he said, “No use in your 
try in’ it this summer, Elizabeth; the grasshoppers et 
up everything last summer, and the farmers had noth- 
ing left after they fed themselves all winter but a 
little grain for seedin’ — too poor to dress up for 
Sunday meetinV’ 

It was true; a flight of grasshoppers was a beauti- 
ful sight to the settlers, if they were very sure they 


238 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


were not going to “ light.” Millions upon millions 
of them had floated over that section more than once, 
their white gauzy wings looking to the admiring 
gazers beneath them like a snowstorm in sunshine. 
One fateful day, however, they did “ light,” and that 
was the famine year among the settlers. 

“ But the children come to school during the week,” 
said Mrs. Hinks, “ why could they not come to Sun- 
day school ? ” 

“ You forget,” said her husband, “ that they can 
walk there barefoot on a week day. Where are they 
goin’ to get shoes for Sunday? Even the fathers an* 
mothers have to go barefoot this summer, last sum- 
mer’s crops panned out so bad.” 

Mrs. Hinks, however, could not drop her project 
so easily; she said no more just then, but the next 
day when her work was “ done up,” she harnessed the 
bronco and started off to make a visit to her neigh- 
bours within a radius of five or six miles. 

The hot summer was setting in, and as she drove 
along the trails there were few salient points of 
beauty on the almost trackless prairie; the crocus 
and wild rose had smiled a brief season and passed on, 
the sunflowers which glorified the prairie with the 
sun’s own royal colour had not yet made their 
appearance. 


IN THE WILDERNESS 


239 


It was a disappointing afternoon; she went from 
one house to another without any encouragement. It 
was just as her husband had said, all the people felt 
too poor to get Sunday attire. Their clothing was not 
so bad, if a bit out of fashion; but their shoes were 
worn out, and they had no money to buy more shoes. 

The next afternoon she started again, taking an- 
other direction this time, travelling the old buffalo 
trails, passing the “ sloos,” said to be great buffalo 
wallows, winding in and out between the mounds of 
the prairie dog and the burrows of the gopher. She 
called at several houses, but every woman gave a dis- 
couraging report. 

“ If you’ll let us all, fathers an’ mothers, an’ 
youngsters, go in our bare feet/ 5 said Mrs. Hefty, 
who was known as the “ funny 55 woman of the settle- 
ment, “ the way we have to go ’round home, an’ the 
way the children go to school during the week, you 
might get us there. Our shoes were not like the 
children of Israel’s shoes; ours wore out in the 
wilderness.” 

Over the supper table that evening Mrs. Hinks 
laughingly told her husband what Mrs. Hefty had 
said. 

“ Well, why not?” said Mr. Hinks; “ feet were 
made before shoes. Let ’em come barefoot.” 


240 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


“ Hezekiah ! that would be irreverent ! ” cried the 
wife reprovingly. 

“ I don’t know why,” said Hezekiah. “ P’raps 
more reverent ; Moses was ordered to take off his shoes 
when he stood on holy ground.” 

“ Hezekiah Hinks, if you ain’t the outbeatenest 
man ! ” cried Mrs. Hinks. 

That night Mrs. Hinks did not sleep well, and 
every time she awoke the thought of the Sunday 
school presented itself. The more she thought of 
going there barefooted, the less horrible it became 
to her. 

“ Wasn’t that an’ idea o’ Hezekiah’s,” she said to 
herself, laughing softly, “ about Moses being ordered 
to take off his shoes. Hezekiah’s a quick-witted man ; 
there ain’t a quicker witted among the whole batch o’ 
men in the district. He’ll have to be superintendent 
if we start the Sunday school. I’ll make Hezekiah 
stand by it now.” 

Before the next Sunday, without saying a word to 
her husband about it, Mrs. Hinks went the rounds 
among her neighbours again, and told in each house 
that they were goin’ to start a barefooted Sunday 
school, and inviting every man, woman, and child to 
come. 

“You must come barefooted,” she added, “ for 


IN THE WILDERNESS 


241 


sure . If one wore shoes the others might feel awk- 
ward; the only requirements for membership is a pair 
of bare feet.” 

“ One bare foot if ye ain’t got two, I s’pose ’ll pass 
a fellow,” said Mrs. Hefty’s husband, who had been 
a soldier and had a left wooden stump where a foot 
had once been. 

When the next Sunday came around it was con- 
siderable of a trial for Mrs. Hinks, attired in her 
blue Scotch gingham gown, a fine zephyr and kept 
for Sundays, to climb barefooted into the 66 demo- 
crat ” wagon to be carried to the Sunday school. Her 
people had been well-to-do farmers in the East, and 
even as a child she had not gone to school barefooted. 

As she stepped out on the bare ground the prairie- 
grass tickled her feet. 

“ Ouch ! ouch ! ouch ! ” she cried as every little 
sharp point and thistle seemed to find access to the 
soft flesh. 

Her husband, it must be owned, felt decidedly 
strange, too. At first he argued that it was not in- 
tended for men; that it was usually women that ran 
Sunday schools; but his wife persisted that it was his 
proposition, and there was no backing out of it. 

They drove along in silence for a while; then Mrs. 
Hinks said, “ When we think of what the missionaries 


242 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


endure when they go among foreigners, this ain’t 
much for us.” 

“ Not much,” assented Hezekiah, covering his 
momentary awkwardness by touching the horses 
lightly with the whip, and shouting savagely, “ Git 
along there ! ” 

They felt less awkward when they reached the 
schoolhouse and found it full of barefooted people. 
These pioneers hungering for Sabbath services hailed 
anything that would be like the old home Sundays. 
Some of the feet were brown and calloused, as if they 
had long been accustomed to exposure to sun, wind, 
and thistles ; others were more white and tender-look- 
ing, silently bearing witness that they had not come 
much in direct contact with the cruel world. Mrs. 
Hefty’s husband was there with one bare foot and his 
wooden stump. 

It was unanimously decided by the company as- 
sembled that Hezekiah Hinks should be the superin- 
tendent of the Sunday school. 

“ You’ve got the gift o’ gab, Hezekiah,” said one, 
“ that the rest o’ us hain’t got.” 

“ You kin hoist a tune, Hezekiah,” said another. 

Hezekiah had these gifts, and he knew it ; but still 
he demurred about accepting the position of honour. 
He raised a tune that day, read a chapter, and called 


IN THE WILDERNESS 


243 


on Mr. Hefty to pray. He confessed to his wife on 
the way home that the real reason for his hesitation 
was that he had no decent clothes for Sunday. It 
was enough for a man, a respectable man, to stand 
barefooted on a platform before his neighbours, but 
to be coatless and have shabby trousers he felt was 
more than he could endure. On that first Sunday, it 
being “ a sign chilly,” he had worn his heavy winter 
overcoat, and a cap, part cloth and part fur; but the 
scorching July and August days were coming, when 
he felt that it would be impossible to endure the coat 
and cap. 

During the following week a very strange event 
happened; some Eastern friends sent the Hinks a 
box. Among other good things which it contained 
was a man’s full suit of white linen and a straw hat. 
Hezekiah Hinks felt sure now of his call to the super- 
intendency. 

The next Sunday when he appeared before his wife 
barefooted, but attired in the white linen suit, and 
wearing the straw hat, she exclaimed, “ Hezekiah 
Hinks, you’re never going in that swell suit with your 
bare feet? ” 

“ Just what I’m a-goin’ to do,” said Hezekiah, with 
a composure that surprised his wife. There could 
be no Sunday school without the bare feet, and there 


244 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


could be no superintendent without the linen suit ; 
they are intended to go together. 

All summer Hezekiah Hinks, barefooted and wear- 
ing his white linen suit, earnestly and faithfully sang 
and prayed and reviewed lessons before a crowded 
Sunday school. 

44 Elizabeth,” said Hezekiah to his wife one even- 
ing they were sitting in the gloaming within their 
own house, 44 sometimes when we are all standing there 
in our bare feet in the Sunday school singin’ ‘ Safely 
through Another Week, 9 or some one o’ the other old 
hymns, it seems as if the heavens opened and the 
angels came down an’ were flyin’ ’round that Sunday 
school room ; p’raps you never felt it that way.” 

44 Yes, I have,” said Elizabeth; 44 1 know well what 
you mean. I’m most sorry that the crops are turn- 
ing out so well* an’ we’ll not have to go in our bare 
feet next summer. Of course the winter’s cornin’ on,” 
she added, 44 when we’ll just have to put on our shoes ; 
an’ the Lord’s good to have provided ’em in time.” 


XXII 


A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS 
a reward for the labours of Hezekiah Hinks 



and his wife, assisted by their neighbours, by 
the next summer a minister was sent to the 


settlement. At least the young man who was sent 
from the East as a missionary was instructed to in- 
clude that little schoolhouse among his appointments. 
Consequently at the time of Alexander’s arrival in 
the West there was service in the schoolhouse every 
fortnight. 

In the course of time the story of Alexander’s 
accomplishments spread, and it reached the ear of 
the young minister who came once a fortnight to 
preach in the schoolhouse. 

“ Why,” said his informant — a young man of 
education himself, and becoming too frequent a 
visitor to the bar of the Wayside Tavern — “ the 
fellow is a Latin scholar, and would seem to have 
Shakespeare at his tongue’s end. But he is right 
under the thumb of old Ahrens — I can’t understand 


245 


246 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

it — and never ventures more than a half a mile from 
the house.” 

The minister was greatly interested; young and 
enthusiastic, he was determined that he would become 
acquainted with this derelict. He rode by the tavern 
several times on his bronco, hoping to see the young 
man, but failed to even catch a glimpse of him. Then 
one evening after dark he called at the Wayside 
Tavern. He was met by the proprietor and given 
a seat in the sitting-room, which was likewise the 
barroom. 

66 I understand, Mr. Ahrens,” said the young min- 
ister courteously, “ that you have a young fellow 
here who is highly educated — a Latin scholar, in fact ; 
and that he has some Scotch in him. Now I am of 
Scotch extraction myself, and I thought I should like 
to meet this young man.” 

The corpulent frame of the tavern-keeper seemed to 
shrink, and his small eyes receded in his head; he 
scented danger — the loss of his very useful and cheap 
servant — and he replied craftily: 

“ The beggar isn’t in just now ; he’s gone off some- 
wheres, I don’t know where — har’ly ever to home. I 
never know from one minute to the next when he’ll 
disappear for good an’ all; he’s a wanderin’ Jock— 
a rollin’ stone.” 


A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS 247 


The fine, sympathetic, penetrative soul of the 
young minister seemed to read the duplicity of the 
other man, and he asked no questions as to what 
direction Alexander had gone, but began to draw the 
tavern-keeper out in another line. 

“ The young fellow, I understand,” he continued, 
“ is quite well informed, and well behaved.” 

“ It’s a lie,” said the tavern-keeper ; “ someone’s 
been coddin’ ye. He don’t know nothin’, kin har’ly 
write his name, an’ the worst actin’ cuss — has to be 
watched all the time. I’m hopin’ every day he’ll 
light out ; kin’t har’ly turn him out to starve — ain’t 
wuth his board.” 

At that moment Jock was in the kitchen scraping 
carrots for a large dinner the next day; but Betty, 
who had seen the minister come in, and was deter- 
mined to find out his business, was secretly hidden 
where she heard all the conversation in the barroom. 

“ The lyin’ thief ! ” she said to herself, shaking her 
fist when she heard the tavern-keeper’s statements; 
“ I’ll set some o’ that right — ef I die fur it.” 

When the minister left the house a few minutes 
later, feeling somewhat disappointed at not having 
accomplished anything, Betty stole around from the 
back kitchen, and whispered sharply into the dark- 


ness: 


248 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


“ Mr. Preacher ! Mr. Preacher ! 99 

Betty never could have screwed up her courage 
to face a minister in her own interests, but for 
the 66 pretty,” and (as she chose to consider) distin- 
guished young man, she could have faced a dozen of 
them. 

“ Don’t believe a word of it,” she added when the 
minister halted at her call. “ Jock’s in the kitchen 
now scrapin’ a bushel o’ carrots for to-morrow’s din- 
ner ; he’s har’ly ever out o’ the kitchen ; they — him 
and her — keep him workin’, workin’ from mornin’ till 
night — no wages — jest a slave.” 

The minister stood silent with surprise. 

“ An’ he does know book-le’min’,” continued Betty, 
“ an’ kin say off po’try like streak lightnin’. An’ 
he’s such a pretty man, an’ says his words so nice — I 
think mebbe he’s a lord or a dook,” she added in a 
still lower whisper. 

“ Bring him out here so I can see him,” said the 
minister, and he murmured to himself, “ A prince in 
penury.” 

“ Oh, glory, he wouldn’t come ef ye’d give him half 
the world,” said Betty. 

“ Well, tell him to come to the meeting Sunday 
night. Say I sent him an invitation, a special invita- 
tion, and shall be very much pleased to see him there.” 


A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS 249 


“ He won’t go,” said Betty despondently ; “ his 

collar’s wore out; an’ he’s nothin’ but the tavern- 
keeper’s old clo’es ; oh, he won’t go ! ” 

“ Betty, Betty,” screamed the tavern-keeper’s wife 
from the back kitchen door, 66 where hev ye went, ye 
miserable dawdler; yer kettle’s burnin’ on the stove, 
an’ this good-fer-nothin’ Jock is moonin’ away an’ 
never noticin’ it ! ” 

Betty crept back to the house, and the minister 
went on his way. 

As soon as Betty had an opportunity she gave 
Alexander the minister’s invitation. The poor dis- 
spirited man was for a moment much impressed by 
the unwonted attention, but he looked down at his 
loose bag-kneed trousers and shook his head sadly. 

When Sunday night came around, however, he 
crept out of the house, and almost involuntarily 
walked in the direction of the schoolhouse. 

It was the first time he had ventured any distance 
from the spot which he had made his home, and the 
free breath of the prairie, instead of exhilarating him, 
disturbed his weakened nerves ; the great expanse, the 
awesome lonesomeness made him shiver. Buffalo bones 
were piled in great ghostly white heaps along the 
railway beside which part of his path lay. He 
glanced fearfully at them, and whispered hoarsely, 


250 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


“ Bones, bones, bones ; that’s what we are all coming 
to.” He started and shrank from everything he saw 
and heard by the wayside — some night birds, the 
startled flight of small prairie animals, the wind’s 
weird whisperings and stealthy creeping in the tall, 

rank grass. The moon went under a cloud, and the 

\ 

dense prairie darkness would have engulfed every- 
thing but for the protective stars which kept watch 
overhead in the blue-black night. 

When he drew near the meeting place he heard 
singing — an old familiar psalm tune, for it was a 
Presbyterian body that was holding the meeting — • 
that he had been brought up on. The weather was 
warm, and the window was open, so he crouched down 
under it and listened. 

“‘That man hath perfect blessedness 
Who walketh not astray 
In counsel of ungodly men, 

Nor stands in sinner’s way. 

Nor sitteth in the scorner’s chair; 

But placeth his delight 
Upon God’s law, and meditates 
On his law day and night.” 

The old psalm tune rolled along in its slow, solemn 
way, filling the small meeting place with sound, while 
Alexander outside laid his face down in the coarse 


A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS 251 


grass which grew up to the very side of the building 
and moaned. 

The minister announced his text and began his 
sermon, but Alexander did not hear it; he was so 
overcome by that old tune, and the words laden with 
memories of the long past days. He was looking in 
on a meeting where all the home people were gathered. 
There was Granny Neilson with her steel-rimmed 
spectacles, her trembling hands holding the psalter; 
there was Mrs. McTavish, sharp and kindly, know- 
ing the words without a book; the schoolmaster, his 
poetic face all aglow; his mother, and too, there 
was little Maggie with her red frock and the red rib- 
bons tying her curls. He smelled again the Balm of 
Gilead which grew at the home church door, and the 
lilacs of the manse garden just across the fence. He 
did not know what the sermon was about, even, until 
toward the close, when he sat up on his elbow and 
heard the minister say : 

“ The longer the prodigal stays away the more he 
sins against his home.” 

“ Oh, he can’t go back,” groaned Alexander, as if 
the words had been addressed to him, “ without taking 
misery and heartbreak along with him — he can’t — 
he can’t ! Oh, mother ! mother ! ” he cried, in the 
anguish of his soul stretching his arms out into the 


252 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


prairie darkness ; “ mother ! mother ! mother ! ” After 
a moment he shut his hands and drew them to his 
bosom as if they held something precious; but they 
enfolded nothing but bits of night. 

He began to fear that the people would soon be 
coming out of the meeting — he must not let them see 
him; so he rose to his feet and stumbled back over 
the black, dreary road — back to his prison house. 


XXIII 


BILL GILOOLY GOES WEST 
?ER Bill Gilooly had finished his course in 



the school of practical science, and received 
his diploma, “ This is to certify that William 


Henry Gilooly has passed all the examinations fitting 
him to be a mining engineer,” etc., etc., he started 
with a band of surveyors out toward the great West. 

When the party had travelled some days and 
nights, they left the train and secured lodging at 
the Wayside Tavern, it being near the railroad, and 
also the hotel that was nearest the base of their opera- 
tions. The party expected to be obliged to camp 
out in canvas tents, but when near a hotel they found 
it more convenient to make it their lodging place. 

Mark Ahrens welcomed his guests loudly and 
heartily. “ Come in, gentlemen, come in ; we’ll give 
ye the best the country provides — good feed, good 
whisky, good service. There’s a dog out here in 
the kitchen ye kin make black yer boots an’ do all yer 
dirty work. Ye kin call him yer valet while yer here. 


254 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


He don’t dast refuse to do anything ye ast him to do 
for fear I’ll sack him.” 

Jock was carrying a pail of swill to the hogpen in 
the backyard, and saw the party leave the train. 
Instantly he recognised Bill Gilooly — the same red 
head, the same generous, florid countenance, the same 
strong, manly bearing; the same, and yet not the 
same; Bill now carried about him an air of culture 
he did not have before; thought , as well as good 
nature, now looked out of the florid countenance. 
In his fright, Jock dropped his pail, spilling the swill, 
and ran behind the pigpen. He crouched down near 
the ground, turning hot and cold. He heard the 
proprietor calling loudly for him, but he did not stir. 

After a few minutes’ reflection he began to think 
that Bill Gilooly would not recognise him. He at 
one time had been straight and tidy, now he was 
round-shouldered and slatternly. His once smooth 
face was now covered by a heavy growth of hair. 
His hair, which had turned almost white, was cut 
straight around, and hung heavy and thick below his 
ears. His eyes, that had once been admired for their 
frankness, had now the look in them of some hunted, 
frightened wild beast. When he had fully decided 
that Bill would not know him, he crept out from his 
hiding place and responded to his master’s call. 


BILL GILOOLY GOES WEST 255 


“ Ye dog ye, where ha 5 ye been? ” demanded Mark 
Ahrens in great excitement. “ Some gentlemens have 
arrove at the house; see ye wait on ’em well; do ye 
hear? Git down an’ lick their feet ef they want ye; 
do ye hear? They have the stuff, an’ we must keep 
’em as long as we can ; do ye hear? Bring me two or 
three pails o’ water to put in the whisky; do ye 
hear? ” 

Jock nodded assent to all these injunctions; and 
procuring two pails from the kitchen, he proceeded 
to the spring for the desired water. 

When he was on his way to the spring, which was 
some rods from the house, he was saying to himself, 
“I must never speak in Bill’s presence for fear he 
might recognise my voice.” Then he felt conscious 
that even his voice, from being cheerful and frank, 
had become whining and cringing; that even Bill, 
familiar as he had been with him, could not recog- 
nise it. 

“ I must never drink a drop while he is here or I 
might give myself away,” he further added; “ I must 
stay in the kitchen and let Betty do the dining- 
room work. I’ll scrub for Betty if she’ll wait on 
table.” 

He had reached the spring, and getting down on 
his knees beside the small pool of water that lay 


256 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


around it, he leaned on his hands and peered long and 
anxiously at his reflected face in the water. 

“ Bill will never know me ; Maggie would not know 
me; my own mother would not know me. I am the 
scum and off-scouring of society. I am one of the 
submerged tenth that philanthropists write about. I 
am one of the non-elect that Calvinists preach about. 
I am a lost soul.” 

A sharp yell from Mark Ahrens put an end to his 
reflections ; he jumped to his feet, filled his pails, and 
returned to the house. 

The engineers were a jolly lot of fellows, making 
life as merry as possible, and Bill Gilooly was the 
leader in practical jokes. He had some of the born 
naturalist’s love for everything living; even snakes 
were not excluded from his interested regard; and 
one day, picking up a small garter snake, he put it 
in his hat. Instantly it occurred to him to have 
some fun with it, so he carried his hat in and laid it 
on Mark Ahrens’ bar. Mark came to pour out some 
whisky, and his eyes fell on the snake in the hat. 
“ Look at that ! ” he cried, pointing toward the hat. 
“ Look at what?” questioned the other men, whom 
Bill had instructed to help him with his joke. “ Don’t 
yer see the snake?” said Mark, feeling decidedly 
queer. “Snake?” said the others, “snake in your 


BILL GILOOLY GOES WEST 257 


eye.” Then Mark became thoroughly frightened ; he 
thought he was getting the “ D. T.’s,” and slipping 
out of the barroom, when he thought himself un- 
noticed, he ran to the kitchen pantry and took a 
strong dose of baking soda. 

While he was out Bill quietly opened the front 
door and allowed the snake to run under the doorstep. 
Mark was sure when he returned and saw no snake 
that the soda had been an effectual cure. 

Another day Bill secured a minnow, and placing it 
in his pocket, he carried it to the barroom. Mark 
had a bottle of whisky standing on the counter ready 
for immediate use, and Bill, seizing his opportunity 
when no one was looking, pulled out the cork and 
dropped the minnow into the bottle of whisky. 

When Mark came to wait on his next customer 
the small fish floated out into the glass of whisky. 
Mark stared, and the customer stared; both for an 
instant were possessed with the one fear that they 
had delirium tremens, that the snake had this time 
taken the form of a fish. When they found out that 
a joke had been played upon them, Mark said, trying 
to cover his chagrin, “ Try yer jokes on that drunken 
dog in the kitchen.” 

The week of the engineers’ stay was almost 
through, and Jock had succeeded in keeping him- 


258 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

self pretty well in the background. He had done 
all sorts of petty jobs for Betty on condition that 
she would go for him into the dining-room, or other 
places where he feared to go. 

“ It’s shy the poor chap is, even of his own kind — 
men,” said Betty wonderingly, “ shy as a gal.” But 
she was good natured, and easy-going, and did not 
ask too many questions. 

Sometimes Bill Gilooly thought there was some- 
thing familiar in the walk of the man-of-all-work 
when he caught a glimpse of him through the window 
carrying out swill in the backyard of the tavern. 
Then when the kitchen door would swing suddenly 
open, he would see the SUme man glance furtively in 
with a something strangely familiar in his eye. But 
Bill felt quite certain that he never could have seen 
the white-headed, white-bearded man before, and that 
these tricks of expression were but a strange co- 
incidence. 

It was the night before the engineers intended leav- 
ing to move to a point further on. A crowd had 
gathered in the barroom of the Wayside Tavern ; 
there was no other sitting-room. Bill Gilooly, who 
was still musically inclined, had found a mouth-organ, 
and was filling the room with the plaintive strains of 
some of the favourite old airs. There is no form of 


BILL GILOOLY GOES WEST 259 

expression, no noise-making, which works on human 
emotions as music works ; some of the section men who 
had began to grow quarrelsome suddenly subsided, 
and some who were laughing boisterously grew quiet ; 
there was not much drinking being done. This did 
not suit Mark Ahrens, and he grew generous, and 
treated all hands who would drink — out of the whisky 
he had most freely watered. He called loudly for 
Jock to bring more glasses into the barroom, and 
the latter, not daring to disobey — Betty had gone out 
somewhere — walked cringingly in with a tray full. 

“ See here,” said a great, heavily set section boss 
the moment he set eyes on Jock, “ you must have a 
glass to help straighten you up,” and he slapped poor 
Jock’s round shoulders with his heavy hand. “ Ye’ve 
company to-night, an’ p’raps ye’ll never see ’em 
again,” he added, pouring out a brimming glass of 
whisky and putting it into Jock’s trembling hand. 
Without a second’s thought Jock savagely drank the 
contents of the glass. 

The deed was done ; the leash of prudence that had 
bound Jock’s poetical muse was snapped; turning to 
the assembled company, but fixing his gaze on Bill 
Gilooly, he raised his right arm, and in a voice which 
had entirely lost its cringing, whining character, and 
assumed the authoritative tone of the orator, he said : 


260 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


“ ‘ The man who hath no music in himself. 

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 

Is fit for treason, stratagems and spoils ’ ” 

Before he had finished the eyes of all the company 
were fastened upon him; Bill Gilooly had dropped 
his mouth-organ and was staring at him as he 
might have stared at one who had risen from the 
dead. 

Jock caught the gleam of recognition in Bill’s eye, 
and suddenly coming to himself, he dropped the glass 
he held in his hand to the hearthstone, shivering it into 
a thousand splinters, and, turning, he fled out through 
the back door. 

“ Sandy,” said Bill in a hoarse whisper, and throw- 
ing down his mouth-organ, he dashed after Jock. 
Out, out, through the long prairie-grass sped Jock, 
knowing not whither he was going, heeding not the 
wild cry of the coyote, the gophers that scurried 
from under his feet, or the whirring wings of the 
nighthawk over his head. Bill ran after him, but not 
knowing the locality as well he could not overtake him 
for some time. At length strength overcame, and 
Bill laid his hand on Jock’s shoulder. 

“ Sandy,” he gasped. “ Sandy, what does this 
mean? — you’re not going to stay here — you’re com- 
ing off with me to-morrow — I’ll get you a job on the 


BILL GILOOLY GOES WEST 261 


survey along with me. Do you hear me, boy ? ” as 
Sandy turned his face from him. “ What did you 
mean by leaving us all these years ? ” 

“ Bill,” said Sandy, bursting into tears and push- 
ing away his friend with both hands, “ go away from 
me. You can’t do anything with me ; I’m a lost soul, 
a lost soul ; leave me, Bill, leave me.” 

“ I’ll not leave you, Sandy,” said Bill fiercely, “ so 
you can make up your mind to that. Leave you in- 
deed, for that scoundrel, Ahrens, to treat you as I 
have seen him treat you! You’re coming with me, 
Sandy! I’ll shave off your beard to-morrow and 
make you young again,” he added as Sandy made no 
further resistance. “ I’ll lend you clothes and col- 
lars and shoes out of my kit, and you’ll be a new 
man. We do not go until ten o’clock in the morn- 
in ; we’ll have plenty of time to prepare.” 

“ You can do nothing with me, Bill,” hoarsely 
whispered Sandy. “ You don’t know me now ; I’m a 
lost soul.” 

“ Well, you’ll be a found soul after this,” said Bill. 
“ You’ll come with me to-morrow.” 

In half an hour Bill had talked Sandy into ad- 
mitting that he was willing to accompany him. 
“ Then it’s settled,” said Bill ; 66 we’re off in company 
to-morrow.” 


262 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


They walked back to the tavern together, shook 
hands, and parted for the night outside the back door. 
Sandy climbed to his attic room childishly murmur- 
ing, “ I’ll be a found soul to-morrow,” while Bill re- 
tired to his room on the ground floor, and proceeded 
to pick from his wardrobe the garments in which he 
intended to array Sandy in the morning. 

As soon, however, as Sandy was off by himself in 
the dark of his attic room, it seemed as if all 
the fiends that ever haunted his life fell upon 
him. 

“ You’ll break away and drink the first thing, and 
disgrace Bill,” said one. “ You’ll be a fine incum- 
brance on Bill’s good nature,” shrieked another. 
“ You’ll probably steal the engineers’ tools, as you 
stole the silver bowl and little red shoes, and trade 
them off for whisky.” “ Run away to-night,” urged 
a fourth, “ and be out of here in the morning, and 
Bill will know nothing about you.” This last seemed 
to Sandy a reasonable suggestion, and half an hour 
after he went to bed he rose, dressed himself, and 
stole off out in the darkness over the prairie. He 
started to run, looking behind him as if he thought 
he might be pursued. He continued to run until he 
was out of breath, and out of sight of the Wayside 
Tavern. 


BILL GILOOLY GOES WEST 263 


Bill slept all night; the joyous thought that he 
had found Sandy, and was going to henceforth care 
for him and take him home to his mother and Maggie 
meeting him like a warm embrace when he first awoke 
to consciousness in the early morning. 

He jumped from his bed and hastily dressed. 
Something, even in his haste, made him think of the 
prayer he used to say in the old time, “ I’m walkin’ 
th’ other way,” but this time he said, “ So help me 
God, I’m going to help another fellow to walk the 
other way.” 

He rolled the articles he intended for Sandy into a 
bundle, and proceeded in the dim light to grope his 
way toward Sandy’s room, the bundle under his left 
arm, and a pair of boots, held by the straps, in his 
right hand. 

He had seen Sandy climb the stairs, so he proceeded 
in that direction. He rapped on a door near the head 
of the stairs and received no answer. Then he went 
farther along the passage and rapped at another 
door, calling cheeringly, “ Sandy, boy, where’s your 
sky parlour ? ” 

From within the second room Betty’s voice called 
out: 

“ Mister, if it’s Jock yer wantin’, the other room 
is hisn.” 


264 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


Bill retraced his steps, opened the door of the first 
room, and went in. He saw at a glance that Sandy 
was not within ; and a sudden chill smote him at the 
sight of the empty bed. 

“ But he must be around somewhere,” he said men- 
tally, recovering himself. “ He’ll be back in a few 
moments. I told him I would come early to dress 
him ; he expected me.” 

Bill waited ten minutes; then he went downstairs 
and looked in the kitchen and barroom. He next 
went into the yard, and looked carefully around the 
outbuildings, even going to the pigpen to which he 
had seen Sandy carrying the swill. 

Coming back to the house he met Betty, who, as 
she had been awakened, rose earlier than usual. 

Betty looked frightened; her hair, which she kept 
cut short “ so as not to have any more bother with 
it than men have with their’n,” almost stood on 
end. 

“ Mister,” she said, “ I heerd a noise last night, and 
I jumped out o’ bed, an* lookin’ through the winder I 
saw Jock runnin’ off out over the prairie; an’ p’raps 
he never came back.” 

In spite of many earnest questions from Bill, no 
more intelligence could be gleaned from Betty, only 
that it was some “ Saint’s ” night and she was 


BILL GILOOLY GOES WEST 265 


“ afeard ” to stay long out of bed, even to watch 
where Jock might be going. 

Bill was grievously disappointed, but he could do 
no more than leave several addressed envelopes with 
Betty, with instructions to send him immediate word 
in case Sandy returned. 


XXIV 


THE DERELICT 

T HE night that Alexander left the Wayside 
Tavern he kept running on and on into the 
darkness until he was out of breath. Then 
looking fearfully behind him, and extending his arm 
to its full length, with the palm of his hand he shoved, 
as it were, something from him. 

“ Go away, Bill, go away,” he muttered. “ Cast 
not your pearls before swine — the dog has turned to 
his vomit again. Maggie, Maggie ! ” he cried piti- 
fully, “ I’ve eaten the caterpillars and the worms ! ” 
Sometimes he would run furiously; sometimes he 
would walk. 

After he had proceeded a few miles in the darkness 
that seemed thick enough to cut, and was somewhat 
tired, he attempted another spurt at running, struck 
his toe against a snag, and fell heavily to the ground, 
striking his head against a stone. 

He lay there unconscious for a time, when over the 
trail, through the tall prairie-grass, Hezekiah Hinks 
266 


THE DERELICT 267 

came in his “ democrat ” waggon, drawn by his pair 
of broncos. 

The horses came to the human body lying across 
the road and stopped short. The owner urged them 
in vain to go on; then he climbed from the waggon 
to see what was the matter. 

Seeing the prostrate form of a man, he stooped and 
put his hand on his brow. At the touch Alexander 
stirred and muttered, “ I’ll eat caterpillars and 
worms, I will.” 

“ I’ll be slivered,” said Hezekiah when he heard the 
strange words, “ if we can’t give you something bet- 
ter than that to eat in this country of plenty.” 

He chafed the hands and brow of the prostrate 
man until he brought him to consciousness. In an- 
other half hour he had his man sitting up ; five minutes 
later he was standing on his feet, and Hezekiah as- 
sisted him into the waggon. 

Half an hour later, when the waggon stopped, a 
door of a house flew open, and a flood of light and 
warmth poured out into the chilly night. 

“ Is that you, Hezekiah?” called Mrs. Hinks. 
“ My, what kept you so late? You must be starved. 
Do come in; I’ve a nice hot supper here for you, 
baked potatoes', piping hot; cold tongue, cottage 
cheese, fresh rolls ” 


268 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


Just then she recognised that her husband had 
company, and stopped talking. 

“ Elizabeth,” said Mr. Hinks, “ bring out a chair 
and let us help this poor fellow out of the waggon; I 
found him lying insensible on the upper trail. 
Hurry, dear.” 

Elizabeth deftly snatched up a chair and carried 
it out; and she and her husband assisted Alexander, 
who was feeble and trembling, out of the waggon. 

The friendly contact of human arms, the sym- 
pathy that he felt emanating from two human hearts, 
as he was being led in the open door of that home, 
Mr. Hinks supporting him on the right and Mrs. 
Hinks on the left, made Alexander think that he 
was entering heaven, attended by ministering angels. 

When he was once inside, the warmth and cheer, 
the bright pictures on the walls, the plants in the 
window, the cat purring before the fire, brought back 
the old home. When they had placed him lying on 
a lounge, and Mrs. Hinks had brought him a cup 
of tea, he called her Mrs. McTavish; another time 
as she was arranging his pillow when he was nearly 
asleep, he called her " mother.” 

The lounge on which he was lying was broad and 
comfortable — made, the woodwork of it, by Heze- 
kiah’s own deft hands ; the mattress of softest goose- 


THE DERELICT 269 

feathers was Mrs. Hinks’ manufacture — and they 
left him on it for the night. 

He slept well, and in the morning when he awakened 
he felt the soft feather pillow under his head, — his 
pillow had for years been made of comhusks — and 
looked at the pure white pillowcase — his pillow at 
the Wayside Tavern never had a case — and ran his 
fingers over the soft white blanket, aromatic with 
the cedar boughs the housewife had put among her 
blankets in summer to protect them from the moths, 
and he thought for a moment that he was back again 
in old Mapleton. He smelled the appetising odour 
of frying bacon, the fragrance of coffee, and it 
brought to his mind the breakfasts his mother used to 
prepare — it seemed to him just then hundreds of 
years before. He attempted to lift his head, but it 
felt heavy, and he let it drop back on the pillow, and 
lay with closed eyes listening to the innocent prattle 
of the children as they were being dressed, — the house 
was small, and the partitions between the rooms thin 
— to the mother singing as she went about getting 
the breakfast, to the grace which the father said at 
the table, to the love-whispers which seemed to per- 
vade the entire home. He felt as though he were 
one who had spent a period of time in hell, and was 
now suddenly transported to heaven. 


270 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


The Hinks children, when they were being put to 
bed the night before, plied their mother with questions 
as to why she was allowing the strange man to sleep 
on the lounge in the sitting-room. The little mother, 
raised on Bible teaching, found the book, and turning 
to the thirteenth chapter of Hebrews, second verse, 
she read, “ Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: 
for thereby some have entertained angels unawares 

The children but partially understood the great 
truth, and all next day watched the stranger curi- 
ously, thinking that at any moment he might develop 
wings, or that possibly he had a fine, large, white pair 
folded away under his rough, grey, full-cloth coat. 

The stranger lay all day on his couch in a half 
doze; toward evening he was stronger, and he sat 
at the table for his supper, the awed children scarcely 
able to eat watching for angelic evidences. Mr. and 
Mrs. Hinks politely asked no questions of their guest, 
thinking that they should have plenty of time to learn 
all about him. 

When bedtime drew near Alexander saw the cat 
being put out, and the clock being wound; he heard 
the little children saying their prayers and giving 
their good-night kisses. He came near seizing his 
hat and rushing out when one wee white-robed lad 
lisped, “ Now I lay me ” 


THE DERELICT 


271 


The family retired early, as was the custom among 
the prairie folk, and when Alexander was left the sole 
occupant of the sitting-room he drew off his boots 
and lay down, but not to sleep. He heard the snores 
of the head of the house, and the children talking 
incoherently in their sleep. During the day he had 
seen Mrs. Hinks give some patent medicine to one of 
the children. He had watched her as she had re- 
placed the bottle on a shelf in the very room in which 
he was sleeping. He knew that alcohol would be 
used in preparing the tinctures that were component 
parts of the medicine. He had thought of that when 
he saw the bottle in her hand. Instead of going to 
sleep when left to himself he gazed in the darkness 
toward the shelf on which Mrs. Hinks had put the 
bottle of medicine. It was only hours since he had a 
drink of whisky, but it seemed like days and days. 
He gazed so steadily that after awhile objects in the 
distance became visible ; he actually could see the out- 
line of that medicine bottle. He sat up on his couch 
and gazed still more intently at the shelf, licking his 
lips. Then throwing off the blanket with one sweep 
of his hand, he rose from the couch, and with long, 
stealthy, tiger-like strides he crept toward the shelf 
in the comer. 

Seizing the bottle, he drew out the cork, smelled 


272 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


the contents, then placing the neck to his lips, he 
drank the noxious mixture, all for the small quantity 
of alcohol which it contained. 

Frightened at what he had done, and fearing con- 
sequences, and detection, he put the empty bottle in 
his pocket, crept back to his couch, found his shoes 
and hat, and with the said articles' in his hand he 
noiselessly opened the door and slipped out into the 
darkness. 

He walked some distance, then he stopped to put 
on his shoes and hat, feeling none the worse for his 
draught except a terrible burning in his stomach. 

He walked for hours far out into the prairie. 
Growing tired, he dropped down into a “ sloo,” which 
at this season of the year was dry, and fell asleep. 

Suddenly he was awakened by a strange crackling 
sound ; the whole heavens above him were lurid. “ The 
resurrection and fires of hell!” he shouted, jumping 
to his feet. Over an illimitable space the tall prairie- 
grass was being licked up by a tornado of yellow 
flame which was coming fast upon him. His head 
was quite clear now ; he grasped the situation ; he in- 
stantly remembered reading in his boyhood days in 
the old village home about the manner in which some 
early prairie settlers had saved themselves during a 
prairie fire. Diving frantically to the bottom of his 


THE DERELICT 


273 


trousers pocket, he drew out some matches that he 
had been in the habit of carrying about with him to 
light the fires in the Wayside Tavern. He struck 
one on the heel of his boot and set fire to the grass in 
several places around him. In a few minutes he had 
a great, charred, blackened ring all around his 66 sloo,” 
and none too soon ; the tornado of flame came up be- 
side him, and finding nothing to burn, swept past his 
place of refuge, and went on its devastating way. 

With the perspiration bursting from every pore, 
Alexander dropped down on the ground again, but 
not to sleep. 

“ Why did I wake up ? 99 he asked aloud of the 
starry heavens above him. “ Why didn’t I sleep 
away and let the fire purge the earth of such as I? 
‘ The tares are gathered and burned in the -fire; so shall 
it be in the end of the worlds 99 he quoted. It began 
to rain, and he tried to crouch in under a low 
sumach. Near morning he fell into a heavy sleep, 
and did not wake up until the sun had risen. 

Then starting up on his elbow a wondrous view 
met his gaze, a mirage of the prairie. There upon 
the atmospheric canvas of the heavens were clearly 
produced mountains, streams, and forests of a dis- 
trict of country hundreds of miles away. The rav- 
ishing beauty of the delectable white-capped moun- 


274 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

tains bewildered the man, and he said in an awed 
whisper, “ Am I dead, and is this heaven ? ” Then 
he moved and felt a twinge of rheumatism, caused 
by his night of exposure, and he cried harshly, 
“ Not so ; no drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of 
heaven ! ” 

He heard the rumbling of a train, and discovered 
that he was not far from a rail-track. He started out 
and walked the track until he came to a station. He 
stayed there until a freight train drew in, then watch- 
ing his opportunity, he swung himself into a freight 
car, and dropped down behind some large boxes. 

When the Hinks family rose that same morning 
the children opened the sitting-room door to take a 
fresh peep at the stranger. 

“ Ma, ma ! 99 called little Bessie excitedly, “ your 
angel’s gone ! 99 

Mrs. Hinks found on investigation that their 
protege was indeed gone, and felt very much disap- 
pointed ; she had hoped to have been able to do or say 
something which might have helped this poor fellow- 
being who had so strangely come under her roof. 
She thought that all she had done was as naught, 
little dreaming that the short stay in her home was 
the means of reviving a sweet picture of home life 


THE DERELICT 275 

and love that had become well-nigh obliterated in a 
human heart. 

She missed the medicine bottle the next time she 
went to administer a dose to her children, but she 
never even thought of associating her loss with the 
stranger who had been so recently with her; she im- 
agined that she herself had absently put the bottle 
in some out-of-the-way place, and that she would find 
it some future day. 


XXV 


IN THE OLD VILLAGE 

T HE little village that was the birthplace of 
Bill Gilooly and Sandy McBain was also 
going through the changes which time must 
effect everywhere. Many old people had died, and 
some not so old had laid down the burden of life. 
Among the latter was the Widow McBain; after a 
very short illness she suddenly passed away. The 
doctor gave some long name to her malady, but when 
Mrs. Brady heard the technical term she said: 

“ He kin give it whatever fancy name he phases, 
but I know the woman died av broken heart.” 

It was Mrs. McT'avish who at the last moment saw 
the faded, drawn face blossom into a smile which wiped 
out every wrinkle and trace of pain, and heard the 
glad, expectant cry, “ He’s cornin’ back, ma boy, ma 
ain son Sandy ! ” 

“ Aye,” whispered Mrs. McTavish in awed tones, 
when a few moments later she was closing the glazing 
eyes, “ she was seein’ things that are on’y speeritually 
discerned.” 


276 


IN THE OLD VILLAGE 


m 


At the funeral the widow’s neighbours sat around 
her coffin, while the aged minister standing at its head 
read in low tremulous tones : 

fi< ‘ We are troubled on every side, yet not disturbed ; 
we are perplexed, but not in despair ; persecuted, but 
not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.’ ” 

And the church choir sang: 

“ For All Thy Saints Who from Their Labour 
Rest ” 

All the village was hushed in silence, even the little 
children stopping their play, as the funeral proces- 
sion wound from the Widow’s late home up the hill to 
the cemetery ; and each heart was asking the question, 
“ Where is the son ? ” 

A month after the villagers stood over the Widow’s 
open grave the little red shoes were seen on Joe Pep- 
per’s baby. It was Mrs. McTavish who noticed them. 
The silver bowl was never seen again. 

Joe Pepper himself had grown to look like an 
animated puffball ; his body, mind, and soul, all 
seemed to have grown spongy. His delicate first wife 
had died, and he had married a young wife, and a 
second family of young children played around the 
hotel. He sat most of the time in one of the large 
chairs in front of the Mapleton House, sucking in 
God’s air like a jellyfish, and emanating torpor and 


278 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


stupidity. He no longer was disturbed by qualms of 
conscience regarding his business, or spasms of sym- 
pathy with the victims thereof. 

He seemed to have grown blind to everything but 
the gleam of silver; Nature spread her wondrous, 
changeful panorama of form and colour before him 
day by day, month by month, year by year, but he 
never saw it. The birds warbled their ethereal music 
into his very ears, the winds made eolian harps of 
vine, leaf, and branch over his head; the spheres 
swung to music in the vast spaces around him, but 
he heard none of them. If, however, a poor bedrag- 
gled, unkempt fellow-being came within his line of 
vision, with a dime or a nickel in his hand, a glint of 
intelligence or cunning would shoot athwart the 
bleared iris of his eyes, and immediately he would set 
afloat schemes to make the silver bit his. 

One eventful day he was sitting in his usual place 
in the large armchair, when One-Armed Joe came 
along. One-Armed Joe had just made a sale to Mrs. 
McShane of a portrait of the Pope — in which his 
Holiness appeared a glorious vision of scarlet and 
white lace — and was consequently the proud possessor 
of twenty-five cents. He was rolling the coin about 
in his one yellow, soiled, claw-like right hand, thinking 
in an irresolute way that he might buy some flour 


IN THE OLD VILLAGE 


279 


with it, as they were out of flour at home, and his 
wife was suffering with neuralgia, when he sauntered 
past the Mapleton House. Joe Pepper at once saw 
the gleaming silver bit, and arousing from his torpor, 
and stretching himself like a great cobra, he began 
to show a new interest in One-Armed J oe. 

“ Good mornin’, Joe,” he said to the latter as he 
slouched along the sidewalk in front of him. “ Come 
an’ sit down a bit,” patting with his hand another 
armchair beside him ; “ ye look most like a half- 
drowned rat,” following the words by a hoarse rat- 
tling sound that was intended for a laugh. “ Yer 
all drug out, workin’ so hard ; rest a bit, man.” 

One-Armed Joe, feeling flattered, dropped into the 
chair beside the tavern-keeper, never knowing that he 
was the simple fly that had walked into the spider’s 
web. 

“ Man alive,” continued the tavern-keeper, when 
One-Armed Joe had seated himself, “ what’s the use’n 
workin’ so hard ; you’re on’y goin’ through the world 
onct ; ye ought to have as good a time as ye kin git. 
Take it easy, Joe, take it easy.” 

This advice exactly coincided with Joe’s views, and 
he was as clay in the hands of the tavern-keeper. 

After they had talked ten minutes, and had way- 
laid one or two other men, causing them to stop to 


280 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

answer some questions, the whole company lurched 
into the barroom. 

An hour later One-Armed Joe came out, minus his 
twenty-five cents, and more drunk than he very often 
became. He staggered down toward the railroad, 
became bewildered as to where he was walking, and 
was suddenly struck by a passing engine. In five 
minutes One-Armed Joe was dead. 

The shocked village was unanimous in extending 
help; the women carried food and clothing to the 
widow and the fatherless, while the men subscribed 
money to pay the funeral expenses. A minister was 
procured — the only claim they had on him was that 
the children of One-Armed Joe had attended Sunday 
school in his church — to read the burial service over 
the pine coffin and the open grave. 

The day following the funeral the widow com- 
menced again her labour for the support of her fam- 
ily, with one less to feed, and cloth, and keep clean. 
In time young Reuben shot into a tall stripling, pro- 
cured work in the village, and insisted on transferring 
the burden from his mother’s shoulders to his own. 

Many a time as the good people of the village 
watched the lad they nodded their heads and said, 
“ One cannot help wondering where the good in that 
boy came from.” 


IN THE OLD VILLAGE 


281 


Maggie Thompson had been a year at the hospital, 
when one night she was at the bedside of a dying 
child, a little girl. The parents of the child were 
there watching the laboured breathing of their only 
darling with breaking hearts. 

“ Nurse,” whispered the father hoarsely in a mo- 
ment of quiet, “ when that child’s life goes out, mine 
goes out. I may walk the earth a few years longer, 
but my joy, my interests in life, are gone — gone.” 

“ Nurse,” said the mother, “ you have never been 
a mother ; you do not know the meaning of suffering ; 
you do not know what it is to have your heart torn 
out by losing a child ; but you are somebody’s child ; is 
your mother living? ” 

66 Yes,” answered Maggie. 

“ How many children has she? ” 

“ I’m the only one.” 

" The only one, and away from Tier . Oh, nurse! ” 

“ Is your father living? ” asked the man who had 
been listening to the conversation. 

Again Maggie answered in the affirmative. 

“ Can he afford to keep you at home? ” was his next 
question. 

“ Oh, yes,” returned Maggie proudly. “ He has 
said to me more than once, ‘ Surely I can afford to 
support one bairn.’ ” 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


282 

“ Then go back to him, go back to him,” said the 
man. “ Life is too short, and if he has only you , 
your place is with him. He cannot do without 
you.” 

That night Maggie shed tears into her pillow, and 
received fresh revelations regarding great work in 
the world. 

Strangely enough, the next day Maggie received 
the following pathetic note: 

“Dear Maggie: 

“Yer old father wants coddlin’ an’ mindin’ too; he has the 
rheumatics bad, and he does not feel that he can do without 
his wee daughtie. Maggie, ma pearl, come home. 

“ Daddy." 

Maggie could resist no longer ; that night, instead 
of taking her accustomed place by the bedside of 
strangers, she packed her trunk for home. 

When she reached home her father folded her to 
his arms with the determination never to let her go 
again ; and somehow Maggie felt as she returned the 
loving embrace that the grandest work she could do 
might be performed within the four walls of her home, 
within the precincts of her native village. 

She settled happily down, and went on her simple 
way, wrapping in an atmosphere of love and cheer 


IN THE OLD VILLAGE 


283 


the dear pair she called “ father ” and “ mother,” and 
being a thing of beauty and a joy forever to the en- 
tire village. “ For,” said Mrs. McTavish, speaking 
about her, “ what noble, aspiring young woman walk- 
ing the street of a village, in all her purity an 5 in- 
tegrity, can help bein’ an inspeeration til every be- 
holder — somethin’ good for th’ eyes to look upon, an’ 
thae bright frocks o’ hers ; aren’t they pretty? ” 

There was a certain expression of pain in the 
depths of Maggie’s eyes, despite her smile and cheery 
ways, that made Granny Neilson, one day she was 
looking at her, whisper to herself something about 
a refiner’s fire, and a purifier of silver. 

Shortly after the funeral of the Widow McBain 
it began to be whispered around the village that on 
a certain night a man’s figure, bent and unkempt, 
was seen standing over Mrs. McBain’s grave in the 
cemetery. Those of the village not gifted with im- 
agination said it was all fancy, that what was seen 
was only the shadow of a tree. 

“ I wonder mil the poor prodigal ever come back? ” 
said Mrs. Brady, as a group of us, one evening at 
a church “ social,” were discussing the apparition 
in the graveyard. 

“ Not likely,” said Peter McKim emphatically, 
closing his lips down tightly over his few remaining 


284 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


front teeth, 44 if you mean reform . Drunkards sel- 
dom reform.” 

44 I havena a doobt he’ll come back,” said Mrs. 
McTavish. . . . 44 Back til th’ Father’s hoose 

at ony rate, an’ I think back til his own village 
home. . . . Cornin’ back won’t mean a restora- 

tion of what he has lost by goin’ til th’ far country, 
no more than it meant it til th’ prodigal o’ th’ Scrip- 
ture,” she added, 44 but yon vision o’ his mother’s was 
a vision o’ th’ soul.” 

A little later Mrs. McTavish was in the shoemak- 
er’s shop, recounting the changes that had taken 
place in the village, along with the Village Saint. 

46 But of all the events that has ever happened 
in this village I don’t call one more wonderful than 
th’ transformation o’ Bill Gilooly,” she said. 44 My, 
I mind well when I first set eyes on that wee baby 
down in that Gilooly shanty, that’s since been burned ; 
I said to mysel’ — in my heart like, so no other would 
be influenced by it — 4 Another little vagabond to run 
th’ streets, an’ by an’ by curse th’ earth ’ ; I really did ; 
an’ now th’ lad’s a gentleman ; I call it a meeracle — 
nothing short o’ a meeracle.” 

44 Ye forget,” said the old man on the cobbler’s 
bench, 44 that the lowest o’ us is made in His image.” 

He pegged at the sole of a shoe awhile in silence, 


IN THE OLD VILLAGE 285 

then he added, “ Man is a wonderful creature, a won- 
derful creature. There are other great creatures, 
but man is the greatest. A small rabbit can hear 
sounds that a man cannot hear; that great bird, the 
eagle, can see farther than he can see; a horse and 
a dog can run faster than a man can run; and an 
elephant is many times as strong as he; yet a man 
can go to the forest and with these two hands of 
his ” — laying down his sole leather and pegs and 
spreading out the palms of his work-hardened hands 
— “ can cut down a tree ; he can dig into the earth 
and bring up metals ; and with either one of them, or 
the two of them combined, he can make instruments 
that can carry sounds farther than the rabbit can 
hear, and another instrument that can see things 
that the eagle’s eye cannot see. He can construct 
an engine that can outrun the horse or dog, or swing 
the elephant like a toy. Man can draw down God’s 
power ; we do not know that any other animal can.” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. McTavish dreamily; “Bill 
Gilooly is a gentleman now.” 


XXVI 


THE BEST ROBE 

jL LEXANDER McBAIN stayed in his hiding- 
/ % place in the freight car until hunger com- 
pelled him to creep out. By this time he 
was many miles away from the old haunts. He was 
no longer afraid of meeting Bill Gilooly, and with 
some confidence he approached a farmhouse and 
asked for food, offering to do some work in return. 
After this fashion, stealing rides on the train and 
stopping off to cut a little wood or rake a lawn for 
food when hunger assailed him, Alexander was carried 
on and on, he knew not whither. After many days’ 
travel he landed in a great city, and he learned on 
inquiry that he was in Winnipeg. 

He sought work and found it very soon with a 
nursery and seedsman. In a sort of accidental way 
the employer had found out that he was a Latin 
scholar, and, despite his unkempt appearance, he 
knew that he could be very useful in his business. 
The botanical names of plants and seeds was some- 
thing that the majority of his employees could get 
286 


THE BEST ROBE 


287 


through their heads; he had a place which he felt 
this educated young man could fill admirably. He 
guessed pretty accurately the reason of his reduced 
circumstances and agreed to take him and pay him 
good wages at the end of the three months’ season 
of gathering and packeting the seeds. He would 
agree to give him his board and lodging in the 
meantime. 

Alexander, hope rising once again in his bosom, 
accepted the offer. 66 1 can’t drink,” he said to him- 
self exultingly, “ when I cannot get any money. I’ll 
be a teetotaller. . . . And when I break off en- 

tirely I’ll go back home — to the village — to Maggie 
— and Mother.” 

Alexander kept sober and worked well; the grow- 
ing things with which he came in such daily and 
hourly contact seemed to have an influence over him. 
Something was awakened in his heart that he never 
knew was there, or if he did know once, he thought 
such feelings had long been dead. Some hand from 
the Infinite seemed to reach out to him through the 
fragrance of a blossom, or the bekuty and grace of 
a vine or leaf, beckoning him to something higher. 
He had more than once dropped a tear into the pure 
chalice of a lily, when no human presence was around. 

A week before his three months’ term was up, as 


288 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


he was going on an errand for his employer, he had 
occasion to pass a saloon. By accident, or design, 
some of the intoxicating fluid in which that institu- 
tion dealt was spilled on the sidewalk in front of the 
saloon. The sun shone hotly down on it and the fumes 
rose strongly to Alexander’s nostrils as he passed. 
He shivered ; then something like madness seemed to 
leap into his nerves; he started to run and never 
stopped until he reached the nursery. He picked up 
a bright new trowel and went off among some plants, 
apparently to work, but in five minutes he had gone 
back to the saloon, traded the trowel — the wife of 
the proprietor of the saloon just wanted a trowel 
to work among her house-plants — for a glass of 
whisky. 

It was a fiery, adulterated draught, and so worked 
on Alexander’s nerves that he began to quote Shake- 
speare. Evidently his thoughts were influenced by 
his recent labour among the plants in the gardens, 
for, turning to a man at his side, he extended his 
hand and said feelingly: 

“ 4 Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills 
are gardeners ; so that if we will plant nettles or sow 
lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with 
one gender of herbs or distract it with many, either 
to have it sterile with idleness or manured with in- 


THE BEST ROBE 289 

dustry — why, the power and corrigible authority of 
this lies in our wills/ ” 

This so amused a bystander that he treated Alex- 
ander to another glass of whisky. 

After this he wandered off out into the city streets ; 
continuing with his Shakespeare as he threaded his 
way among the crowd, he muttered thickly : 

“‘Jog on, jog on, the foot-path wa 7, 

And merrily hent the stile-a 
A merry heart goes all the day. 

Your sad tires in a mile-a.’ ” 

He wandered around until night, and when too tired 
to walk he sat down on a doorstep. A policeman 
found him there and made him walk on. Every 
time he stopped to rest one of these uniformed pro- 
tectors of the peace said, “ Move on.” At last he 
came to a church, in which he heard music ; thinking 
that he might at least rest a few moments in the 
vestibule, he crept in and sat on a lower step of a 
flight of stairs leading to the gallery. There was 
a musical rehearsal going on in the church, and, as 
Alexander listened, he heard repeated over and over 
again, in a sort of recitative: 

“ And while he was yet a great way off the father 
saw him, and had compassion on him, and ran and fell 


£90 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 

on his neck and kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed 
him ” 

Alexander could listen to no more; jumping to 
his feet he ran out of the church. 

Finding a place, after some more walking, where 
a sidewalk was elevated some feet above the ground, 
he crawled in under it to spend the night. He fell 
asleep to the sound of tramping feet above his head. 

On that same evening, back in the old village home, 
Granny Neilson was sitting in her rocking-chair with 
closed eyes. A beautiful picture she made with her 
soft, white muslin cap and kerchief, and her dear 
old withered hands folded over her black gown. She 
had laid her knitting in her lap and taken off her 
spectacles, and her lips were softly whispering: 

4 ‘ ‘ Prayer makes the darkened clouds withdraw. 

Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw. 

Gives exercise to faith and love; 

Brings every blessing from above.”* 

In the early morning, before daylight, Alexander 
awoke ; he was stiff and sore, and he crept out of his 
hiding-place. Wandering back toward the busy part 
of the city, his attention was attracted by a crowd 
of men, a wild-eyed, unkempt, starved-looking com- 
pany in front of a door. Learning that they were 


THE BEST ROBE 


291 


waiting for said door to be opened to admit them to 
a free breakfast, he joined himself to the waiting 
company. 

In a few minutes the door opened and the hungry 
men filed into a large room provided with wooden 
benches, where they were served with hot coffee and 
rolls. 

After the lunch a man stood on a platform at the 
end of the room and began to sing. 

Alexander, feeling actually ashamed of having 
been driven to the necessity of accepting free food, 
had crept into the very back seat, and when he had 
eaten his roll and drunk his coffee he leaned his elbows 
on his knees and buried his face in his hands. The 
light was dim and the figure on the back seat was 
scarcely noticed by the other men. When the man 
on the platform had finished his song, having urged 
all the men to join him in the chorus, he began to 
talk. By this time Alexander had slipped out the 
door, which stood ajar, and was sitting on the door- 
step. 

The man on the platform read the story of the 
impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, then, looking 
up from his reading-desk, he said : 

66 Thirty-eight years of sin, suffering, disappoint- 
ment, neglect, this man endured.” 


292 ALEXANDER McEAIN, B. A. 


“ Only thirty-five,” muttered Alexander out oh the 
steps, “ but it seems like a thousand.” 

“ It is a pitiful story,” continued the man. “ But 
it was all changed in one moment by the pity and 
power of the wonderful Saviour. There were plenty 
of people as needy as himself in that great multitude 
by the pool, but somehow this man was alone in his 
misery.” 

“ Yes, alone, alone,” muttered Alexander. 

“ Poor, forlorn wreck! He had been left to drift 
on the rocks with no one to care,” continued the man 
on the platform. “ He had probably been a great 
sinner, and his suffering was his own fault, because 
Jesus told him to sin no more, lest a worse thing 
come upon him.” 

“ Yes, his own fault, his own fault,” gasped the 
poor wreck on the doorstep; “ or his father’s fault.” 

“ Very likely his friends were tired helping such 
a good-for-nothing, so Ihere he lay helpless and 
hopeless.” 

Two or three violent sobs was the only response 
to this from the figure on the doorstep. 

“ But there are no good-for-nothings in God’s view 
in the humanity redeemed by His Son. If you would 
see the heart of God, here it is opened to us in the 
sympathy of Jesus with this outcast. Men and 


THE BEST ROBE 


293 


women had seen him there for years, and perhaps had 
said, 6 Poor fellow!’ but nobody had offered to help 
him. Some were in. too great a hurry ; others thought 
it was not their business, his friends — his own people 
ought to look after him. Others said, 6 I’ve known 
that poor soul for a long time; he is always sitting 
there; it is no use to do anything for people who 
never try to help themselves.’ Christ saw things as 
they were; He knew that the man had not lived a 
right life.” 

“ No, no,” came in sepulchral tones from the 
doorstep, “ he has not lived a right life.” 

46 Christ saw him sitting hopelessly, as if there was 
nothing else to do; He knew that he had been that 
way a long time.” 

“ A long time,” said the voice from the doorstep. 

“ He was one of the 6 recurrent ’ cases who wear 
out everybody’s patience. But Christ saw what we 
often fail to see, a little spark in the dark of the 
man’s soul ; and to this possibility He appealed. 
c Wilt thou be made whole? ’ He asked.” 

“ Oh, yes, yes,” responded the voice from the steps, 
“ if there is any power in heaven above, or earth 
beneath, that can do it.” 

“ Hope wakened at the sound of that sympathetic 
voice,” continued the speaker, “ and the man cried, 


294 ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


6 1 think I might, but I have no one to help me. Every 
man is for himself ; they all get ahead of me, and here 
I sit a miserable failure.’ ” 

“ Miserable failure,” repeated Alexander. 

“ But although he was a miserable failure in his 
own eyes, Christ thought it worth while to help the 
one everybody else had given up. Miserable failure! 
are you here? 99 called the man on the platform. 

“Yes, I am the man!” cried Alexander, jumping 
to his feet and staggering into the room; “I am 
the man ! ” he repeated, holding his hand at the full 
stretch of his arm over his head, and walking up the 
aisle between the rows of benches, right up to the 
speaker on the platform ; “ tell your Christ about 
me! 99 

“ Tell him yourself,” said the speaker earnestly ; 
and the inebriate fell on his knees. 

How did it happen? It is beyond the power of 
man to explain; the wind bloweth where it listeth, 
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but cannot tell 
whence it cometh or whither it goeth: so is everyone 
that is bom of the Spirit. Suddenly the poor in- 
ebriate felt as if the Everlasting Arms were beneath 
him, a spirit of exultation filled his soul, and he threw 
back his head and shouted — shouted. 

He stayed in the building half an hour, then he 


THE BEST ROBE 


295 


walked out and went down street as one moving on 
wings. He unconsciously went toward the railroad, 
and suddenly there smote his ear the wild shriek of 
a woman. He turned and saw a child toddling on to 
the railroad in front of an advancing engine. He 
ran, caught the child, and saved it; but he was 
struck and severely injured himself by the engine. 
The ambulance was called and he was despatched to 
the hospital. 

It soon became evident to the attendants that owing 
to his depleted condition, their patient could not live, 
and Alexander seemed to know it himself. That same 
evening he told his attendants about the three months’ 
salary that the nursery man was owing him; and he 
requested them to get the money and have his body 
sent to the old village home — the poor wanderer had 
never heard that his mother was no longer there. 

Then he called for a sheet of paper and pencil, and, 
while his nurse propped him up in bed, he wrote with 
broken, uncertain hand, “And while he was yet a great 
way off , his father saw him , and had compassion on 

him 9 and ran , and fell on his neck , and ” The 

pen fell — the spirit of Alexander McBain had fled. 

The short letter containing Alexander’s last mes- 
sage came to the village first, and we expected the 


296 


ALEXANDER McBAIN, B. A. 


body. We all went to see it when it arrived in the 
village in the neat casket. 

“ Ah,” said Mrs. McTavish, wiping away the tears, 
as she looked into the pallid countenance, “ his mother 
has kissed that face a thousand times.” 

“ ‘ This my son was dead , and is alive again; he 
was lost , and is found. 9 Th’ laddie has on th’ best 
robe,” said Granny Neilson exultingly. She and 
Maggie Thompson had come in, arm in arm, to look 
at the precious dead — Maggie would have it so. 

“ Dearie me,” said Mrs. McTavish again, as she 
stood at the window watching Maggie guiding 
Granny Neilson’s feeble steps across the street as 
they were going home, “ one canna help thinkin’ 
about all th’ inheritance o’ this world’s joys that th’ 
Heavenly Father intended for th’ poor laddie, but 
which he forfeited by goin’ til th’ far country.” 

“ He drank but a sip of the living water just as 
he got through the wilderness, when he might have 
had it refreshing him all the way along,” said the 
Village Saint, when Mrs. Brady told him about Alex- 
ander’s short note. 

There was plenty left from his mother’s estate 
to bury Alexander and erect a tombstone. 

Strangers now come into our cemetery — the beauty 


THE BEST ROBE 


297 


of our village attracts many summer visitors — and 
stand over that grave, more than any of the others, 
and read aloud, “ Alexander McBain, B . A ., aged 
thirty-five They pause a moment, then add, sadly, 
“ A scholar — so young to be cut off — what a mys- 
terious providence ! ” And we of the village listen 
and say nothing. 

“ Strange,” said Mrs. McTavish, 66 to think on it, 
that our village B. A. is lyin’ stretched out yonder 
in our graveyard.” 

Matters in the village fell back into their old 
grooves after the excitement caused by Alexander’s 
funeral had passed away, everybody pursuing his 
and her appointed way as they had been doing for 
years. William Henry Gilooly continues to look 
wistfully in the direction of Maggie Thompson ; but 
Maggie, like the rest of us, keeps her eyes fastened 
yearningly on that green grave in the old village 
graveyard. 


THE END 



Pastoral 

Sketches 


Mostly of 
Village Folk 

The Village Artist 

By ADELINE M. TESKEY 

I 2 mo, cloth, illustrated, $1.00 

P ICTURES of her neighbors 
by an artist whose canvas is 
her village, whose brush is her pen, 
and whose colors 
are drawn from 
a soul that sees 
only purity and 
whose perspec- 
tive is her ideals. 

“ The artist conceives 
likenesses of people as they 
might become if they gave 
their best qualities a chance 
Mrs. Simon Slade tells her 
experiences in a quaint, 
simple manner, that is it- 
self a rare delight. . . . 

Altogether a delightful production .” — Washington Star . 

AuntAbbfs Neighbors 

By ANNIE TRUMBULL SLOSSON 

Author of w Fishin' Jimmy ” 

i2mo, cloth, decorated, 5th edition, $1.00 

u Mrs. Slosson has never done finer work than in 
this book. ... If you want a book that you will 
read and treasure, a book to laugh over and cry over, or 
a book to read at odd moments, or to study and mark 
and learn from, get ‘Aunt Abby’s Neighbors.* But 
you’ll give it away, and have to get another copy.” 

— Sunday School Times. 



iiHinniMiii 

s 



The Village 
Artist 

Jr- 

\DEUNE M.tESKEY 




$th Edition 


Absorbingly 

Interesting 


The Lure of The 
Labrador Wild 


By DILLON WALLACE 

T HE Story of the Exploring 
Expedition conducted by 
Leonidas Hubbard, Jr., the 
tragic incidents of which are graph- 
ically related by Dillon Wallace, 
who accompanied Hubbard. 

Illustrations and Maps. 8vo, 
cloth, net $1.50 

44 Possesses in its naked truth more of human interest than 
scores of volumes of imaginative adventure and romance of 
the wild country .” — The Chicago Evening Post. 

44 He has produced one of 
the most graphic and mov- 
ing stories of adventure that 
we have ever read. The 
story tells itself, and is as 
dramatic and devout as it is 
pathetic. Here is a record 
that holds one, as fiction 
never would, of suffering 
faced and heroism shown, for 
an ideal that failed, by men 
who did not fail each other.” 

— N. T. Evening Sun. 


44 The romance of explo- 
ration has, perhaps, seldom 
been so fascinatingly pre- 
sented.” — Review of Re- 
views. 


“ ■ w en 



Exploring Expedition 


CONDUCTED $y 

Leon idas Hubbar d, Jr. 

17 Illustrations • • • • 3 Maps • 



A First Novel 


A Parish Romance 


St. Cuthberf s 

By ROBERT E. KNOWLES 
i2mo, cloth, $1.50 

T HE requisites of a novel of strength 
involve, first, a setting; second, char- 
acters of strength; and finally, and 
all-important, the genius to weave into at- 
tractive narrative the 
joint product of set- 
ting and character. 
Given a most unique 
spot for a setting 
whither pen of author 
had not yet wandered, 
people sturdy and full 
of force and character 
and human passions, 
Mr. Knowles has pro- 
duced St. Cuth- 
bert’s, a romance of 
his parish. For a 
first book yet to be discovered by the littera- 
teur the reviewers have been kind, yet no 
more kind than just. 

44 Reveals Mr. Knowles as a master of precise Eng- 
lish.” — Canadian Baptist . 

4 4 Abundant evidences of literary power of no common 
order. * ’ — The Presbyterian. 

44 Permeated by a wholesome kind of ideals which it 
is well to keep constantly before the public.” — The 
Public Ledger. 

Ci Too varied a community and too. versatile a humor 
for any chapter to be dull.” — Chicago Tribune. 

4 4 It is a new field of romantic interest Mr. Knowles 
has opened up.” — Albany Argus. 



ST.CUTHBER.rS 

R.E. KNOWLES 


Illustrated 


Cloth , $i.fO 


Sir Raoul 

A Tale of The Theft of an Empire 
By JAMES M. LUDLOW 
Author of “ Deborah,** “ Captain of Janizaries,*’ etc. 

A BOOK one reads twice. You 
rush with Raoul through his 
adventures, and when he is safe 
home in his Schwartzwald Castle 
with his Lady Renee, you are 
haunted with a vague memory of 
stores of fascinating information 
about our crusading forefathers* 
ways of life. So you read it twice. 

“ Dr. Ludlow writes of these days of warfare, rapine, 
and intrigue with rare skill. A fine tale of chivalry is 
‘Sir Raoul,* and the elements of romance and adven- 
ture are excellently mingled. It absorbs the attention. * * 
— Newark Evening News . 

“Depicts with vividness 
and insight the barbarous 
times in which an empire 
was stolen. The action is 
thrilling from beginning to 
end, the love story is strong 
and adds to the interest of 
this work of rare scholar- 
ship .” — New York Exam- 
iner. 

“‘The Captain of the 
Janizaries’ has outlived many 
hundreds of historical novels 
and ‘Sir Raoul* should prove 
equally successful and perma . 
nent .” — The Independent . 



A Tate 

Hie Theft of an Empire 


Fleming H. Revell Company 

i’vuiiiiiiio 


Two Striking 
Pictures 


of the Under-Side of 
New York Lift 


The W isdom of the Simple 

By OWEN KILDARE 

l2mo, cloth, $1.50 

W HEN Owen Kildare’s “ My Mamie Rose ” 
came to the public it was given instant and 
complete recognition, not only as a book but 
as of giving promise of more and sturdier and richer work 

from the same pen. Its 
author writes about the 
slum-life of New York 
not as a fashionable 
4 4 slummer ’ * but as one 
who has felt the 
and the heart-throbs of 
the people of the East 
Side, indeed reared as he 
was in the rough nursery 
of the tenement alley, it 
is not remarkable that, 
once his latent genius has 
found expression, he 
should write to his 
theme with inimitable 
power. 

Saint Cecilia of the Court 

By ISABELLA R. HESS 

Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, $1.25 

41 Shows rare skill of construction, well-sustained action, and 
dramatic power. Pictures many sides of life in the whirling 
metropolis where a little red-haired girl rises above the envi- 
ronments of the alley. The pathos and humor are irresistible.” 

■ — Boston Globe . 

“Miss Hess will find many enthusiastic readers of her story, 
besides she really has told a pathetically pretty story of a poor 
little red-haired saint,” so says The Times of New Yorkj 
but it is not all the story nor a fraction of it, for it is a keen, 
true study of a phase of slum life revealed by a well-drawn 
sketch by a competent artist. 



msDoi 

of the 

SIMPLE 



OWEN 

KILDARE 

AOmC* Or 

. M-JMtE R.OSE * 




8vo , Cloth 


Price , $1.75 net 


Denizens of the Deep 


By FRANK T. BULLEN 

T HERE is a new world of life and 
intelligence opened to our knowl- 
edge in Mr. Bullen’s stories of 
the inhabitants of the sea. He 
/inds the same fascinating interest in the 
lives of the dwellers in the deep as 
Thompson Seton found in the lives of 
the hunted ashore, and with the keenness 
and vigor which characterized his famous 
book w The Cruise of The Cachalot ” he 
has made a book which, being based upon 
personal observation, buttressed by 
scientific facts and decorated by im- 
agination, is a storehouse of infor- 
mation — an ideal romance of deep sea 
folk and, as The 


Saturday Times - 
Review has said, 
worth a dozen 
novels. 


DENIZENS or 
THE DEEP 



Not the least 
attractive feature 
of an unusually 
attractive volume 
is the series of 
illustrations by 
Livingston Bull 
and others. 


TKA'NK. 

T. 

BULLEN. 


THE fF O R K S OF 


NORMAN DUNCAN 


The Adventures of Billy Topsail 

12 mo, illustrated, $ 1.50 . 

It’s a boy’s book, but its “a book to be chum- 
my with” — that includes everybody. 

A ripping story of adventure by sea — a north- 
ern sea, full of ice and swept by big gales — 
a tale that moves like a full-rigged ship with 
all sail spread to a rousing breeze. 

Second Edition 

The Mother 

A Novelette of New York Life. i2mo, cloth, 
$ 1.25; de Luxe, $2.00 net. 

‘‘Another book quite unlike ‘ Dr. Luke ’ in 
environment, but very like it in its intuitive 
understandings of the natures of the lowly and 
obscure . . . holds the reader spellbound. ” 

— Nashville American. 

Twenty-fifth Thousand 

Doctor Luke of the Labrador 

i2mo, cloth, $1.50 

‘‘Norman Duncan has fulfilled all that was ex- 
pected of him in this story; it established him 
beyond question as one of the strong masters 
of the present day.” — Brooklyn Eagle . 

Fourth Edition 

Dr. Grenfell’s Parish 

Illustrated. Cloth, $1 . 00 net. 

“He tells vividly and picturesquely many of the 
things done by Dr. Grenfell and his associates. 

—N Y. Sun 



THE COMPLETE WORKS OF 

. Ralph Connor 


The Prospector 125th thousand 

A Tale of the Crow’s Nest Country. 

i2mo, $1.50 

“A novel so intense that one grinds his teeth lest the sinews should 
snap ere the strain is released. ” — Chicago Tribune. 


Given 


1 2th thousand 


The Canyon Story from “ The Sky Pilot ” in Art Gift 
Book Series , beautifully printed in two colors with many 
illustrations and marginal etchings. 

!2mo, art cover, 75c. net 


Wack Rock 450th thousand 

A Tale of the Selkirks, with an Introduction by Prof. 
George Adam Smith. Illustrated by Louis Rhead. 

l2mo Cloth, $1.25 

“Ralph Connor has gone into the heart of the Northwest Canadian 
mountains and has painted for us a picture of life in the lumber and 
mining-camps of surpassing merit.” — St. Louis Globe Democrat. 


The Sky Pilot 


260th thousand 


A Tale of the Foothills. Illustrated by Louis Rhead. 

l2mo. cloth, $1.25 

“ Ralph Connor’s ‘Black Rock’ was good, but ‘The Sky Pilot’ is 
better. The matter which he gives us is real life ; virile, true, tender, 
humorous, pathetic, spiritual, wholesome. — The Outlook. 


The Tlan Prom Glengarry r6oth thomand 

A Tale of the Ottawa. i2mo. cloth, $1.50 

“A legitimate successor to ‘The Sky Pilot’ and ‘Black Rock,’ which 
secured him the swift fame that leaps to the author who strikes a new 
and effective note.” — The Literary Digest. 


Glengarry School Days 761,1 thousand 

A Story of early days in Glengarry. 

i2mo. Illustrated, cloth $1.25 

“More than that he has given us pictures of that little-known 
c^jntry which bring with them clear, cold breaths, the shadows of the 
jDods, the grandeur of the tall tree trunks, the strength and the free- 
>m of this outdoor life.” — Chicago Journal. 


FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY, Publishers 
































































• 

, 












. 

. 

* 

. 










' • 




















. 



































' 



























. 











































• 











































